


If It's Meant To Be

by Spulantes



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: (JunHao), Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Boarding School, Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Basically Highschool, Comedy, Coming of Age, Established Relationship, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Minor Character(s), One-Sided Attraction, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, Underage Drinking, Underage Smoking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 18:34:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 31,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28978956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spulantes/pseuds/Spulantes
Summary: Highschool is youth. Highschool is infatuation, the experience, the heartbreaks, the friendships. It all starts from a misunderstanding between Mingyu and Wonwoo and from there, a year-long story develops.Jeon Wonwoo doesn't understand himself, the people around him, relationships, and most importantly, his own take on romance.
Relationships: Jeon Wonwoo/Kim Mingyu, Wen Jun Hui | Jun/Xu Ming Hao | The8
Kudos: 10





	1. Our feelings can't become the same

**Author's Note:**

> I actually had a Junhao Oneshot planned back in Oct but I accidentally deleted it and then rewrote half but I'm having a hard time completing it (in the correct way) so for now, I'm gonna go ahead with this one (since it's chaptered). 
> 
> There are some tags I didn't include cause 1. It would be giving away the story 2. Its chapter-specific. So I'll put when applied and also some Trigger Warnings (just in case) 
> 
> ❖ Also for the purposes of the story, everyone is the same age except Jeonghan and Joshua who are born the previous year making them older but in the same grade year. 
> 
> Enjoy~

"Mingyu thinks you like him," 

Jun tells his roommate as they clean their bathroom space. Wonwoo is currently crouched down cleaning under the sink when Jun suddenly brings up this topic. Wonwoo can only give out a small laugh and questions back why he even thinks that. It's true, despite being classmates for almost 3 years now, they suddenly became closer this year. They've shared multiple classes in the past years so they weren't merely "classmates" because that title seems too cold and distant for what their relationship was. In the previous year, they even made it a competition to see who gets the best grades in a particular subject which Wonwoo eventually won but the teacher told them that it was a really close match between them. (Yes, the teacher knew about their competition) But something shifted along those lines of just being friends after the start of their junior year and maybe it's because of Jun and Minghao but Wonwoo can't simply give all the credit to them alone, but Wonwoo knows it's not a romantic feeling that was the cause, that he knows for sure. 

"Why does he think that?" Wonwoo asks standing up to see Jun wiping the corner of the sink. 

"He said something along the lines of you always being around him and also the fact that you guys are suddenly closer" 

There it is, the typical "wanting to be around the person you like", Wonwoo understood that that's natural, there's no denying that. But why is it that two people can't just simply be friends without having people misunderstand that for infatuation or a crush? 

Wonwoo spurts out his thought process to Jun and Jun agrees but also tells his roommate that Mingyu seemed so sure when he brought it up. 

"God, this is gonna be so annoying to deal with." 

"Don't think too much about it, honestly, Mingyu thinks everyone is in love with him." 

"No I couldn't give two fucks about Mingyu, I'm more concerned about me just overthinking every single one of my actions." 

If one knows Jeon Wonwoo well enough, they know that overthinking should probably be his middle name. Wonwoo groans in annoyance, knowing himself, from now on he's probably going to be conscious every time he asks Mingyu something or naturally sticks with him because over the course of 5 months, they went from simply sharing classes and small talks here and there to sitting next to each other in some classes and hanging out after school. Jun cuts his thoughts short as he turns on the water to clean his cloth. 

"It's fine," he extends his words. "Either way, he's going with us to China during the break and I've been wanting to introduce him to BamBam anyway. " 

"Oh, your friend right?" 

This isn't the first time Jun has brought up BamBam in a conversation. About 2 weeks ago Jun was on a phone call with someone when Wonwoo was mindlessly working on his geography essay and he only took notice of the loud phone call at the back until when Mingyu's name suddenly came into the conversation. After that, Jun kept giggling and cooed whenever Mingyu came out of his mouth." 

Wonwoo didn't think much of anything at that time so he asked who he was talking to and hence he learned about BamBam. How his real name is too long for anyone to remember so he made himself a nickname, how he knows Korean and Chinese because he is an avid language learner, the fact that he and Jun used to go to the same school before Jun and Minghao decided to transfer here for their junior and senior years and the fact that Jun thinks they're perfect for each other. 

Jun really seems excited about letting them meet but Wonwoo doesn't really understand how two people could date in the span of a week and then continue that relationship by managing to have long-distance but that's not his problem so he keeps his thoughts to himself. Of course, Jun knows Wonwoo is probably thinking that but he too keeps his mouth shut. 

The first few days were the most awkward for Wonwoo, he tried his best to not make himself look suspicious or drive any attention towards himself or the situation but it seemed like Mingyu caught on after a while because Wonwoo can keep a poker face when he really tries but his natural self is too conspicuous to be ignored. Wonwoo naturally drove himself into overthinking mode which mainly comprised of thoughts of why Mingyu would think that in the first place and even to the point of thinking that maybe, just maybe, Mingyu might have feelings for Wonwoo. But he immediately got rid of those thoughts when his own mind decided to play the lovely game of "there's no way someone would like you." 

Wonwoo wishes he could just construct his thoughts to form words that explain his take on romance and the whole idea of relationships but life doesn’t work that way and he has to live with the fact that maybe someday someone will be able to understand it in its simplest form or maybe no one will ever get it. But if he were to put it into a few words in his head, it would be as simple as he can't ever see himself in a relationship with someone. He doesn’t mind the teasing and the shipping but there is a limit to everything and when that limit is crossed, he wishes he could just explain his discomfort. It's not like he has never liked a person in his life, in fact, he has liked a handful of people, but that's about it. It never went any further than that, no admitting of feelings, no getting into relationships, etc. It sounds like simple insecurity that someone could overcome the minute they find the "right one" or the "right time" but for Wonwoo it's much deeper than that. He has always settled for "if they're happy, that's fine with me." and that's what he really felt deep inside. 

The thought of being with someone else and being so open about yourself and just simply sharing a huge part of yourself with someone else is something Wonwoo doesn’t understand or fails to bring himself to ever imagine doing. He has never told the full story to anyone, there was a time when brought it up in a conversation with Joshua and tried to explain it in the simplest way he could but just as he expected, it's hard for anyone to understand especially when the main person himself doesn't understand it. When he sees Jun and Minghao so happy and loving with each other, the thoughts do sometimes pass through his mind that he wishes maybe he had something like this, but he himself cannot ever bring himself to imagine being in a relationship. He has given countless relationship advice to his friends or can imagine two people in a relationship almost picture-perfect. But the minute the subject comes to himself, the image is a white canvas that has the eraser function all over it because if he tries to draw over it, it disappears within seconds.

Wonwoo disregards the idea that Mingyu might have feelings towards him and even though it bugs him through their conversations and the way they act towards one another, Wonwoo can't bring himself to even believe in the slightest chance that someone would like him. So he tucks it away, somewhere where he knows it's lingering in its own cage but unable to free itself. 

"You going back to Japan this break?" Jun asks him about a week from when they had that somewhat awkward conversation (at least for Wonwoo). 

"My parents don't want me to waste money on coming back for such a short period of time so I'm stuck here, Soonyoung said I could go over to his house in Namyangju so I guess I'm sticking with that plan." 

"Oh you should have come with us to China," Jun says with a half joking-half serious tone. He knows Wonwoo's parents would never send him to places just like that but he also wishes his roommate could enjoy a break with him. 

Wonwoo and Jun have known each other for about 5 months, and in that short amount of time, Wonwoo grew closer to Jun more than he has with anyone ever. Even with Soonyoung, it took about a year to actually get to know each other well enough, and only in their second year of knowing each other did they actually start hanging out. Maybe it's the fact that Jun was placed with Wonwoo as his roommate because Wonwoo supposedly gave out a "friendly" and "welcoming" aura despite being the most awkward human being when it came to first meetings. Jun knows this but Wonwoo actually dreaded having a new roommate when he got a picture of the roommate arrangement from Joshua whilst he was waiting for his plane back in Japan. 

Despite them being awkward beans for the first few weeks of being roommates, from asking each other whether the other wants to turn off the lights or who wants to use the bathroom first in the morning. Now they resort to aggressive rock paper scissors for minor things like who has the turn on/off the air conditioner or lights. Maybe it's the convenience of Jun joining Wonwoo's little friend group that helped their relationship grow faster. Minghao also, by default, ended up sort of joining their friend group even though he freaked everyone out for the first few days because everything about him screamed intimidating. It helped at the beginning that Jun would leave during the weekends to stay at his own apartment that he shares with Minghao but these days Wonwoo watches the clock whenever it's around the time that Jun should be returning. 

Mingyu and Minghao also grew closer in a short amount of time just like Jun and Wonwoo- because of the fact that they were roommates. And as much as Wonwoo jokes about it, it's true that the couple does everything and anything together and hence why they ended up tagging along with Mingyu to KFC when the latter wanted to get a zinger burger. Jun explained that Mingyu randomly brought up that conversation whilst they were in line and despite Jun arguing first that Mingyu is thinking too much into Wonwoo's actions, eventually he ended up somewhat being convinced by Mingyu himself and for some reason Minghao. Mingyu never said anything about keeping this from the person of the subject, so he decided to tell him, which proved to be a great means of making things awkward between the two people involved. And now they're here. 

🌱

February break rolls around faster than anticipated, maybe it was a good thing considering they've had a long semester but somewhere in the back of his mind, where he would never ever admit it even to himself, Wonwoo doesn't want Mingyu to go to China. 

Jun, Minghao, and Mingyu end up leaving early due to their flight schedule. When Wonwoo returns to his room, he can see the traces of Jun packing his stuff and leaving in a rush. His blanket is dangling at the edge of his bed so Wonwoo goes and folds it for him. Wonwoo changes out of his uniform and puts it in his laundry basket along with other unwashed clothes. As Wonwoo puts his toothbrush and other toiletries into a small pouch, Soonyoung knocks on his door. Wonwoo quickly turns off the music he has left playing out loud. 

"Let's go?" 

When Soonyoung opens the door to his car, Wonwoo immediately greets his parents who are sitting in the driver's and passenger's seats. Soonyoung's mom immediately asks if Wonwoo is hungry. He really isn't but he kind of feels bad in case they prepared him something so he replies with "a little bit" just to keep it in the safe zone. 

They leave the school campus and within 10 minutes they're already hitting the highway. 

The drive to their house isn't that long as far as Wonwoo remembers so he keeps himself awake. Once they exit the highway. the car takes a different route to their house which Wonwoo is initially confused at first but passes it off as taking the road with the least traffic. Wonwoo opens his Instagram to check the stories sections when the car comes to a stop and they've arrived. The house is darkly lit, naturally because no one was home but the house is illuminated in an instant when Soonyoung goes over to turn on the lights. Wonwoo keeps his shoes properly tucked away at the side and he steps foot inside the house. 

"Come down for dinner at 6," Soonyoung's mother half-yells, and Soonyoung replies with a simple 'okay' before heading upstairs with Wonwoo behind him. 

Once they settle in the room, Soonyoung changes out of his uniform and drops himself on to his bed. 

"whaadyowattodotomrrr" 

"What?" 

Soonyoung lifts his face from his pillow. "What do you want to do tomorrow." 

"Oh, I don't know. Wanna just go to the mall?" 

"Lowkey want to dye my hair" that piques Wonwoo's interest because as far as he knows the Gemini has never dyed his hair to a colour that is not considered in the 'natural' range before so Wonwoo is kind of curious as to what kind of colour he wants to try. 

"What colour?" 

"I don't know, we'll see tomorrow." 

Until dinner, they just stay on their phones scrolling mindlessly through whatever app they have on their phones. Dinner is a simple Korean dinner but Wonwoo enjoys it far more than what their school cafeteria has to offer. 

"Why do the teachers have to give us work when we're supposed to be in a break?" Soonyoung complains after they finish eating dinner and they return to the room. He brought some snacks along with him because what good is a sleepover without midnight snacks. 

"What do you have?" Wonwoo asks. 

"I have a Psych report first draft right after we go back, what about you?" 

"Not much, just a bit of Econ exam preparations and something for Geo, I don't even know what it is," Wonwoo confesses. 

30 minutes into their 'silence time' in order to finish whatever work they have, Wonwoo shuts his laptop and drops his face onto the table. Soonyoung is doing his work on his bed and looks up because of the loud thud. 

"Fuck econ," Wonwoo says burnt out from redrawing diagrams and writing the words 'firm', 'market' and 'price'. 

"Yeah no I can't do this either, as much as I love talking about Psych, this shit kills my brain when I have to write a whole ass paragraph about it." 

"Wanna just watch something?" 

So they do, they end up watching random crime movies on Netflix until Wonwoo looks to his side and sees that his friend has clearly fallen asleep. So he tucks the blanket properly on top of him, closes away his laptop and places it on the floor safely, and turns off the light. 

The next day, they head out to the mall as planned. They don't really do anything other than some eye shopping in the mall but decide that they're too broke to afford anything that's sold in the mall so they end up going to a fancy flea market 15 minutes down from the mall which Wonwoo happened to see while scrolling on Instagram last night. The whole event is themed to be like a carnival so there are tents set up and bite-sized food grilling as they walk through the entrance. They skim through the clothes section with the occasional glance when something catches one of their eyes but they end up spending their money on food. 

Soonyoung ends up buying a pink hair dye, not on the neon side but more towards magenta. He also gets a brown hair dye so he can lighten his hair even just a little bit so the colour can pop more rather than reflecting off sunlight or that's what Soonyoung said and Wonwoo pretended to understand. 

They leave before the sun goes down and Soonyoung orders some pizza since his parents are busy to cook for tonight. When the pizza arrives, Soonyoung goes to pick it up and even pays for it saying things like Wonwoo is a guest, etc. Wonwoo takes out his phone to take an Instagram story, nothing meaningful. They devour the pizza alongside chicken wings that they got as a bonus since Soonyoung has accumulated points over the years. 

Once their stomach settles down from the heavy carb and MSG filled meal, Wonwoo asks his friend if he wants to dye his hair. Since they have nothing to do, even though they both have heaps of school work, they momentarily forget about it and start mixing the hair colour with the developer. They take turns shaking the bottle because it's cheap dye and it's probably bad for Soonyoungs scalp but he just says "oh well" and laughs it off. Once the bottle seems to be showing some colour, Wonwoo unfolds the provided gloves inside the package and puts them on. 

Despite never having dyed someone else's hair before, Wonwoo manages to do a good job. With Soonyoung in front of the mirror and Wonwoo working from the back, he can see a little of his hair getting lighter to that a nice shade of brown but they'll have to see after they wash it out and dry it. After seeing that people shouldn't dye their hair twice in one go, they decided to only do the brown tonight and do the pink the next morning. When Wonwoo finishes the application, only then do they realize that they don't have a shower cap or something of that kind to keep the warmth intact to process the dye. They end up putting a plastic bag over his head to which Wonwoo literally drops on the floor laughing cause in theory it works but when actually applied, it's way funnier. 

After 30 minutes of waiting, they remove the plastic bag, much to Wonwoo's disappointment but he snapped a few pictures for memories sake, and Soonyoung goes to his shower. Soonyoung kneels down while Wonwoo grabs the showerhead from above and lets a gentle amount of water pour out. Wonwoo helps him wash off everything and even splashes water in his friend's face with the showerhead while he's conditioning his hair. Once they're done with that, Soonyoung sits down on the floor while Wonwoo sits on the chair as they dry his hair. For the surprise effect, they turn away from the mirror and keep their phones away until everything is dry. 

Surprisingly, despite being not too many shades different from his initial hair colour, Soonyoung weirdly likes this shade and even contemplates keeping it until the end of their break and changing it to pink right before they go back. 

They end up sleeping after that because by the time they end, it's past midnight and as much as they want to keep their hype alive and going, they're too tired so they end up sleeping. 

Next morning, Wonwoo wakes up a bit earlier than the other so he positions his back up and scrolls through his social media. He opens his Instagram the last, not for any particular reason but he wishes now that he didn't. The first story up is from Jun and Wonwoo mindlessly clicks on it. They're in Minghao's house and sometimes Wonwoo forgets that Minghao has a really nice upscale house in China. The first few stories are just of Jun, Minghao, and Mingyu hanging out in a pool in the dark with dim pool lights on but the last story is that of Jun taking a video selfie with Minghao and then flipping it in the last few seconds to a shot of Mingyu and who Wonwoo assumes is BamBam in the pool together. It doesn't take a genius to realize that they're kissing in the pool and something goes off in Wonwoo's heart that he really doesn't know what it is or whether he can even understand what just happened. 

Maybe it's the good old Wonwoo never understanding how people can get together so fast, how people can figure out their platonic attraction from their actual attraction, or how people don't try to actually get to know the other person and only see what is on the outside; the physical and the first impressions. Maybe Wonwoo is just slow at liking someone or actually coming to the conclusion that what he feels is not platonic or maybe it's the fact that even liking someone is rare for Wonwoo. And as much as he doesn't like to push his way of life to other people, deep down, he will never understand it. Maybe that's why he found Jun and Minghao's story so fascinating and cute. How they are childhood friends and have known each other for the longest time, had the most awkward phase of Jun liking Minghao first but Minghao not feeling the same, them returning to just being friends, and even at some point not being friends at all, then Minghao falling for Jun after they reconciled and then them finally getting together the year before they came to Korea. Wonwoo likes that they took the time and counted every moment to be here where they are now. 

Or maybe it's the fact that Wonwoo somewhat feels betrayed, brought up to this pedestal by his own expectations only to be crushed by the reality that wasn't the truth in the first place. Wonwoo thought that maybe if he had time to sort out his thoughts, come to a proper conclusion then maybe he would be able to figure out what it was that was really going on with Mingyu. Maybe it was something that Wonwoo couldn't see through the lens of his own eyes because it was tainted and covered in the illusion of friendship and companionship. That the reason they suddenly got close this year was none other than Wonwoo's natural instincts of attraction driving him closer to Mingyu and Mingyu doing the same. Because if it were a one-sided thing, Mingyu would have tried to keep a distance on him, but he didn't and that's what made Wonwoo come up with this little fantasy in his head that maybe, just maybe Mingyu might have feelings for Wonwoo. But once again, the reality is met in front of his eyes when he realizes for other people, feeling attraction and immediately liking someone Is normal and he just needs to get his shit together. 

Wonwoo closes the app and takes out his earphones to distract him from his thoughts, not that they're helping. Wonwoo hates this feeling, this mode where a switch called 'overthinking' is turned on, and somehow the turning it off is no longer an option. He looks at the sight of Soonyoung sleeping and wishes he would wake up as soon as possible so his thoughts can be replaced with sounds of words coming out of another person's mouth and not his mind. 

He would like to turn it all off and just not see any more of it, unfortunately, social media is this addictive asset in life that cannot be easily removed just because one doesn't feel like it. It's easier said than done nonetheless and it surely doesn't help the voice in his head when he sees more stories from Jun and even Mingyu at some point of how their break in China is going on. Clearly, in this story, there is a winner and loser and Mingyu doesn't even know this but he's a rising victor. 

🌱

Mingyu is passed out on the ground while Minghao desperately tries to get the former to drink some water whereas Wonwoo can only hold on to the tissues he grabbed from the bathroom and watch in horror. Maybe to another person, this sight would be been something normal but for Wonwoo, it's definitely a first. He's dealt with tipsy people in the past with how they either get super hyper, super emotional, or super clingy, heck he's even unfortunately dealt with people who get so drunk to the point where even they're walking or talking normally, most of it doesn't make sense from a logical standpoint. But Wonwoo would never want to know what Mingyu is feeling at this very moment because as much as it's glorified in movies and dramas or people say it's not that bad, Wonwoo can tell with full confidence that it's worse than what it seems. The events that led up to this very moment is something Wonwoo would probably remember for a while because this was one hell of a memorable weekend and not in a good way. 

Wonwoo thought he would be spending his weekend like any other, in his bed, watching whatever is available at the time and waiting for Jun to come back with actual food and whatever other snacks he brings with him but after what was a week that some might even call 'hell week' because all of the teachers decided to collectively make all assignments due at the end of the week, by Friday Wonwoo needed to get out of the campus to get a breather. So here he is with Jeonghan in Jun and Minghao's shared apartment waiting for Jun to get changed into whatever fancy clothes he has planned for this outing. Minghao is currently with Mingyu in the mall browsing through the electrics shop so they can enhance their computers in their room which honestly Wonwoo finds interesting even though he could never afford to do something like that.

The apartment is small but enough to fit 2 people who have to only live there for the weekend and then return to a spacious dorm room for the week. Honestly, Wonwoo doesn't understand from a monetary standpoint why they even have this apartment in the first place but he also understands that they just need their alone time and it doesn't help that their roommates are there throughout the weekend and one doesn't even leave his room for the entirety of it. They have a small kitchen but they mostly just go out to eat at their favorite Chinese restaurant because bless their dedicated souls towards their own cuisine because going 5 days without it makes them go insane and that's not an exaggeration, at least on Jun's side. And it doesn't help that the school cafeteria makes the blandest food in the world almost ripping off their tastebuds from the sheer lack of any sort of flavor. The most flavor they get out of anything is the deserts and in terms of a balanced diet, that might not be a good thing. They have an average-sized living room, enough to fit a small couch and a small coffee table, but from what Jun says they rarely even touch the couch because they end up sitting on the floor. Contrary to that Jeonghan and Wonwoo are actually sitting on the couch and just scrolling through their phones mindlessly. Jun comes out after what felt like an eternity but it was only around 10 minutes. 

By the time they leave the apartment, it's around 6 pm and for the choice of the bar that they're heading to, it's the perfect time for happy hour. The bar they go to is one that is specifically catered to college students and high school kids. They know for the latter it's illegal but there's only a handful of high school kids that make it through without the aid of alcohol and Wonwoo is unfortunately not in the minority. He doesn't mind alcohol though, sometimes the taste of ethanol just burning through your throat that consequently makes you forget that you have an assignment due the coming Monday is just what is needed. When the three arrive at the bar, Minghao and Mingyu are already seated with drinks by their side huddled up around a couple of people from other schools that Wonwoo has never seen or met. 

Wonwoo despite not having much experience at it, can proudly brag that he has a decent alcohol tolerance. About an hour into drinking, Jun hugs him from the side and just starts kissing his cheeks and talking about how much he loves everyone here, typical tipsy Jun. Wonwoo doesn't give any sort of reaction because that would just be playing into the Chinese boy's tipsiness but honestly, he finds it comical yet adorable at the same time how mellow he becomes after a few shots. Jun leans away and starts hugging Jeonghan who blows out smoke from his mouth as the former leans on to him.

Wonwoo hates the smell of smoke, he's not sure if he just has a sensitive nose or whether he's just repulsed to it, but he tolerates it, it's nothing new having lived in Japan his whole life and almost every adult smelling like a pack of cigarettes after work hours. But he could never bring himself to try, in the past Jeonghan and Mingyu have offered him whenever they smoked around him but there was never even a slight hint of temptation. Wonwoo learned early on in their relationship that Jun used to smoke prior to coming to Korea; apparently, it's ubiquitous to have students around this age start smoking or are already in the habit since the start of high school. After Jun and Minghao reconciled after their short period of not being friends, Minghao started to convince Jun slowly by slowly to quit the death stick. He completely stopped when they made their relationship official so Jun has been off for a decent year which despite not being there for the majority of it, Wonwoo is proud of him. 

Some guy comes up to their area and asks if they want to play beer pong with him, Wonwoo looks at Jun and Jeonghan first just to see what they want to do but before he can even ask or say something, Jeonghan has already leaped from his chair and put his cigarette out. Jun also seems to want to join so Wonwoo tags along. When they realize they're in short of one person, Jeonghan suggests calling Mingyu to which Wonwoo is, by default, forced to go call him. Wonwoo goes inside to look for the said person and finds him on the other side of this huge area playing pool under a deep orange light with a couple of people who Wonwoo only knows that they're in the grade below them. 

"Mingyu-yah!" Wonwoo calls out when he's a bit nearer to them but not enough that he has to raise his voice a bit. Mingyu is now leaning on the wall, holding the pool stick in his right hand and scrolling through his phone with his left. 

"We need one more person for beer pong, come join." he pulls at Mingyu. It's not even a question of whether he wants to or not but Mingyu puts his phone into his pocket and tells the other people that he's dipping from the game. Wonwoo walks slightly behind Mingyu, his view being of Mingyu's left shoulder, all while knowing for sure that he's a bit tipsy and the beer pong is most certainly not going to help. The teams are divided as Mingyu, Jeonghan, and Minghao against Jun, Wonwoo, and the guy that called them. Surely Wonwoo's excellent aim will come in handy right now but unfortunately, he has none of that because he probably has the worst aim in the world to the point he even questions himself why he joined a game of beer pong in the first place. Jun is no better but somehow manages to get one in for Minghao and Minghao groans as he takes a chug at his cup. Wonwoo is put against Mingyu and all he knows is that if any of his goes in, it would be considered a one in a million moment. Just as he had guessed, he gets none of his into Mingyu's side whereas Mingyu got at least 2 in and one was in the latter part of the game so the beer had become almost lukewarm which was just a horrible experience to drink. 

2 hours into the night and they've divided themselves into smokers and non-smokers. So Jeonghan is outside with Mingyu whereas Wonwoo, Jun, and Minghao have shifted insider. At some point Jeonghan and Mingyu came in to have a rainbow shot upon Jun's request; more like him dragging the two of them over to the bar counter. Wonwoo takes the middle green one whereas Mingyu takes the purple because he came last and that was the only one remaining. Jun and Jeonghan take out their phones to take a boomerang for their Instagram stories, Wonwoo just guessed he'll be tagged so he can just repost it. Jeonghan and Mingyu join the three at their table probably done with their 500th cigarette after Jun pulled them inside. At this point, they're closer to drunk than tipsy. More like Jeonghan, Wonwoo and Minghao are still fine but Jun and Mingyu are sort of gone. It's entertaining to watch Jun hug Mingyu out of nowhere and care aggressively petting the other's hair until Jun opens his mouth. 

"You!" he looks at Mingyu whilst holding both his shoulders. 

"You and Bam are so cute together and perfect for each other!" Something tugs at Wonwoo while he watches this unfold. 

"You better take care of him, I love you guys so much, please stay together for a long long long time," Most of his words are slurred but still recognizable. Wonwoo wants to escape. He doesn't understand why he's acting like this but right now he's really like to not be here. Mingyu doesn't say much except smile whenever BamBam is brought into the sentence and answers with simple "I know's" while giggling like someone who has really fallen for someone. Is that that what love does to someone? Can he call it love? They've only been together for 3 weeks but in this day and age, one can really not grasp what is just infatuation era actual romance because of how the media have conditioned everyone to believe in love at first sight or instant romances. 

Wonwoo takes a sip of whatever he has in front of him and he can only pray that no one is noticing his discomfort, it helps that the area is dimmed so that the night light can creep in. He knows he doesn't like Mingyu, he's liked other people before and it didn't feel like this, it didn't feel like a void in your heart or just a simple admiration towards the other person just the way they are; nothing more, nothing less. It was butterflies, it was rapid heartbeats, it was getting shy for no reason, but right now all he can feel is the pang in his chest that he can't identify as romance because he knows deep down, he just made up a story in his head that he wished would be true but ended up like a car crash. 

They disperse again after a while because Wonwoo decides he needs some fresh air out on the patio whereas Minghao and Mingyu want to play pool and Jun wants to learn from his boyfriend so they move along. Jeonghan is talking to a random stranger so Wonwoo stays outside alone just sipping on a cocktail that he knows he shouldn't be having because he's not sure when his limit will be crossed and today is not a day he's willing to take a risk. So he goes inside and asks the bartender for a glass of water and to his surprise, the water here is apparently free so he's going to enjoy that. He chugs the glass of water and when he's about to head outside, Jeonghan calls out to him and he sees Jun and Jeonghan head towards him. Jun got bored after 3 rounds because he wasn't getting any in and the people Jeonghan was talking to had to leave so they're back to square one. 

"Wanna go 7?" Jeonghan asks and Wonwoo thinks maybe he wants some breath mints and a rice ball to thin out the alcohol. They leave the bar and head out into the streets of Seoul. It's almost half past 8 but the city doesn't seem to be anywhere near sleep. When they enter the 7 eleven, they're met with the bright white lights of the store along with the fact that the tiles are white hence more reflection of the light on to their faces.

Wonwoo grabs an icebreaker in berry flavor and a salmon rice ball and that's about it. He's already checked out his things when Jun comes to purchase his items that are inside the shopping basket. He has three times the amount of things that Wonwoo has but he guesses it's for both him and his boyfriend. When Jeonghan comes to the counter, he asks for a pack of cigarettes which Wonwoo has never seen before, the package is of light blue color and when the cashier shows the inside, the sticks are thinner than the average cigarette. Wonwoo is curious and it probably showed in his face because Jeonghan looks at him and tells him that it's a European brand that does flavored ones and this one, in particular, is yogurt. His interest is peaked more over the fact that cigarettes have flavour choices, something that he never knew because he's never seen anyone with it in his former country of residence. 

When they return to the bar, they see Minghao alone outside just mindlessly scrolling through his phone. 

"Where's Mingyu?" Wonwoo asks, even though the answer is probably the same as always: hanging out with a bunch of people that he doesn't know or would never bother to even learn about. 

"I don't know, he went off somewhere about 5 minutes ago and never came back, I'm sure he's in there somewhere." At that point, they know to not pry into each other's relationships with other human beings too much so they leave it at that. They expected him to come back before 9 PM cause that's the time they set for themselves to leave but it's already 10 minutes past the set time and it's starting to get concerning. 

"I'll go look for him," Wonwoo says as he pushes his chair behind him with the back of his legs. 

"You sure? I can go with you," Jeonghan says and Wonwoo doesn't have any reason to stop the former, so they go inside looking for the missing person. They inspect the entire area but Mingyu is nowhere to be found. The last place they decide to check is in the bathroom and unexpectedly they find Mingyu there, but not in the best form. He's leaning his entire upper body on the sink and his legs are almost jelly because he falls before they can even catch him. 

"Mingyu-yah! Mingyu! Oi, say something." Jeonghan yells as he and Wonwoo try to simultaneously lift him up. 

"What's wrong with him?" Wonwoo asks, unsure of what could have happened in such a short amount of time for him to become this way. As they finally manage to lift him from the floor, Jeonghan spots something next to the sink and curses under his breath but loud enough for Wonwoo to hear in this tiny bathroom area. 

"Son of a bitch, he's crossfaded," 

"Wait you mean?" 

"Yeah, that," he nudges his head at the remains of what was a joint. Wonwoo takes his phone out with his left hand and texts Jun what's happening. When they get out of the bar, amidst all the eyes glancing at them and the bartender giving a distaste look on his face, they meet up with the Chinese couple and they've already called a taxi. Minghao takes over Jeonghan's place to help put Mingyu into the backseat along with Minghao. Because the five of them can't fit in a taxi and they shouldn't let one person go alone, they decide to meet up with Jeonghan and Jun back in the apartment. 

Wonwoo sits in the front seat to guide the taxi driver to their destination while Minghao and his best friend are at the back with the latter's head leaned on to the former's shoulders. They drive through the city night and even though Wonwoo told the driver the correct location, it seems like they weren't in luck with this particular taxi driver because he says he's too bothered to go into the area where the apartment is so he drops them off at a park that's quite near the apartment but not near enough when there's a whole grown teenage boy who can't even walk by himself. Wonwoo quickly pays for the fare and then heads out to help Minghao take Mingyu out of the vehicle. They manage to get him out but the boy is so heavy that they can't go for long before taking breaks. Mingyu is half-conscious because he mumbles random words that neither of them understands. 

At this moment, they're lucky they took a break because Mingyu just pukes his guts out in the drain nearby as Minghao hits his back to aid him with the process. Wonwoo sees a vending machine lit up in the dark park and goes to buy a bottle of water. He notices the wall that the machine is leaning on is actually the toilet so he goes in and grabs some tissues. He comes back and immediately passes the water to Minghao to which the receiver twists open and tries to feed it to the mess that is Mingyu right now. They're both crouched down whereas Wonwoo is standing up, watching this unfold in front of him. Wonwoo has never been with someone who got crossfaded and despite Mingyu talking about it in the past saying how fun it is, as of right now, it doesn't look very fun. Wonwoo's blankly staring at them but his attention diverges to the multiple notification sound coming from his phone. 

**_Junnie_ **

> Where are you guys??? 

> Hello?? 

> You guys dead??? 

> Where are you?? 

> Won answer!!! 

_**Wonuwu** _

We're stuck in the park <

Mingyu's dying <

or dead <

idk <

Just stay there, we'll be there <

Jun replies with a rabbit sticker that says "ok!" and Wonwoo puts his phone back into his pocket. 

"How's he doing?" Wonwoo asks as he looks back at the two people on the ground. 

"Better, water helped I guess, wanna go back?" 

They try their best to get to the apartment in one go and luckily by this time no one is around in the area so the only judgemental eyes they get is from the guard at the gate but after they pass by the main door and up the elevator- thank god for the elevator even though they live on the 3rd floor, they both would have died trying to carry the whole weight of Mingyu up 2 flights of stairs. Mingyu is also somewhat now supporting himself with his own legs so it helps just by a little bit. When they get to the apartment, Minghao doesn't bother for his keys and just knocks on the door. Jun opens the door and they take him and plop him onto the couch. Jeonghan is out on the tiny balcony that they having another smoke but puts it out when he hears the loud thud which came from when they dropped Mingyu on the bed. 

Mingyu falls asleep almost immediately and as much and Jeonghan and Wonwoo would like to stay and chitchat, they have to go back to the campus, so they end up calling an uber and they leave the apartment. The drive back is quiet because neither of them is saying anything because at this point they're too tired to even discuss the entire event that went through. Jeonghan does end up asking what happened the next day. 

🌱

"Here's the handout for the trip and please get the money ready by next Monday, if you can't go then please let me know," the teacher says as he passes the papers to Mingyu for him to pass out to everyone in the club. This will be their first out-of-city trip and they're lucky that they got the school to agree because prior to this even trying to get them to go a little away from Seoul was a challenge. 

"Oh yes, one member from the audio and sound club will be joining us, they'll have to decide that amongst themselves. 

"What if its Jihoon?" Wonwoo laughs and Soonyoung hits him lightly because there has been times when Wonwoo have said things and have definitely jinxed it. 

"Also, please decide on your roommates and let me know as soon as possible," 

Wonwoo and Soonyoung just look at each other and they don't even have to say anything for them to ask to be put in the same room. Wonwoo goes up to the teacher and even he seems to know since he just goes "You and Kwon?" and all he has to do this nod. 

"You guys have a freaking trip to Jeju?" Jun half yells as Wonwoo returns back to his room and throws his whole body onto his bed headfirst. 

"Yeah it's for 2 days, we come back on the 3rd" he says tilting his face to the side so his words are audible. 

"God damn it, I should have joined film when I had the chance." It was in fact too late to join now, Soonyoung joined upon the request of Wonwoo about 3 months before because Jeonghan decided to quit at the end of the first semester and Wonwoo was left without a partner for projects and other things. Soonyoung was probably not even interested but joined because having diversity in his choice of clubs may become a plus for him in the future when it came to university applications. 

So now the film club is heading to Jeju on this spring day where April nears closer than February is. 

They arrive at the airport after lunch on a Saturday, fatigued from the week of school they just had. They go inside the building and huddle around in a group as the teacher begins to headcount. 

"We're missing one person," their teacher says as he looks down at his watch. "We still have a little time, hopefully they'll be here soon, for now please give me your passports,"

"Sorry I'm late," says a very familiar voice breathless as he sounds like he ran here after the initial security checkpoint. 

"Oh my god, no way," Soonyoung says as Wonwoo just starts laughing out loud. 

"Hi Jihoon," Soonyoung says trying to hold in his laugh as well. 

"What, what's wrong?" Jihoon looks at them as he takes out his passport to hand it over. 

"Nothing nothing," Soonyoung says, this time giggling uncontrollably. 

"I made a joke last week saying what if it was you and now you're here," Wonwoo says after he calms down from his own laughter. 

"For fucks sake, they made us do it by rock paper scissors and it was down to me and Minghao and then I freaking lost over his paper on my rock," he says grumpily. 

The teacher gives them back all of their passports with their tickets tucked in between.

"What seat did you get?" Mingyu comes up to Wonwoo. He looks at his own ticket and sees 32C and recites it as he eyes it. 

"Oh, mines 32B," Mingyu says and Wonwoo just looks up at him and he thinks that this is god playing tricks on them because there are countless other people in this club ranging from the freshmen all the way up to the senior and somehow Mingyu is seated next to Wonwoo. Soonyoung and Jihoon are also next to Wonwoo at 32D and 32E over the aisle so Wonwoo guesses the teacher arranged their passports in grade order and handed them to the counter that way. 

They pass through security and all of them took the longest time because they all have digital cameras, film cameras, and other film equipment. Wonwoo and Jihoon get through first and waits for the other two to come through. Mingyu comes first and Wonwoo just stands there as he watches the other put his things in his bag. 

"Let's go?" 

"Soonyoung," Wonwoo says just nudging his face towards the boy who is currently getting himself scanned by security. When he arrives he complains how he had to keep doing the scan over and over because they had a problem with every metal attached to his body from his watch all the way to his belt. They all head over to the gate and there are no available seats and for a while, they all stand and wait but eventually they see that their flight is getting delayed so they give up and end up sitting on the floor. Wonwoo is scrolling through his phone when he feels the need to go to the toilet, so he leaves his things with Soonyoung and heads over to the bathroom. When he sits back down, he sees that Mingyu has fallen asleep and Wonwoo waves his hand in front of his face. 

"What?": 

"Oh shit, thought you were sleeping, sorry" he retracts his hand at lightning speed. 

"What are you listening to?" Wonwoo asks trying to change the subject even though there was probably no need for it. 

"Here," Mingyu says, taking out his AirPods from his left ear and handing them to Wonwoo. Wonwoo takes it and when he puts it in his ear, he's met with a rock track so intense and loud, he wonders how Mingyu was closing his eyes and trying to get some rest. The track changes and he recognizes this song, it's the first song on Mingyu's long rock playlist which he shared with Wonwoo. 

After what felt like hours of waiting, they finally board the plane. Wonwoo unintentionally goes in front of Mingyu and he has to back up a bit to let the other get into his seat. After Mingyu settles down, Wonwoo sits as well and he doesn't want to take notice of how uncomfortably close they are but that's because of the seating design and nothing else. Soonyoung and Jihoon have already settled down in their seats and they're watching something on Jihoon's phone. They're told to shut it off by the flight attendant when they near take off. Of course, they take it back out after the flight attendant distances herself. They take off soon after and the flight is only for about an hour or so, so Wonwoo just ends up reading something on his phone. He glances over at Mingyu and he sees him watching some show on Netflix that Wonwoo saw the trailer a couple of months ago but didn't find intriguing enough to check it out. 

They arrive faster than Wonwoo expected but then again he's used to the 2-hour flight from Seoul to Haneda rather than the one hour it took them to Jeju. The walk to the baggage claim area is quick and Mingyu goes over to the trolley rack to yank one out. 

"Let's share?" 

"Sure," Wonwoo says as he quickly diverts his attention to the signboard that changed from 'waiting' to 'first bag'. The conveyer belt starts moving and bags slowly begin to appear. After about a minute, Wonwoo spots his own bag and starts moving his feet. 

"Gimme," Mingyu says from behind. 

"What?" Wonwoo says stopping his feet. Mingyu gestures to the bag that Wonwoo is holding and he slowly passes it to Mingyu before going to grab his own suitcase. 

"Wonwoo shut your thoughts for fucks sake," he says to himself as he lifts his suitcase. When he returns Mingyu walks towards his own suitcase and lifts it. Wonwoo waits for Mingyu to return since Mingyu's suitcase is bigger so it should be placed at the back. Once they're done, Wonwoo looks for Soonyoung and Jihoon only to see they have already grabbed their suitcases, which Wonwoo has no idea when they had the time to do so, and they walk towards them. 

Once the rest of the club members get their bags, their teacher guides them to the exit at which they have vans reserved to take them to their hotel. The driver opens the back for them to put their suitcases. Mingyu puts his first and when he finishes he comes back to grab Wonwoo's. 

"It's okay," he quickly stops Mingyu and forcibly takes his own off the trolley and puts it in the van. Wonwoo is stubborn like that, he doesn't like showing dependence or weakness. He knows the other probably didn't even think much into it but for Wonwoo it's something he's been doing for the longest time from his childhood days when his parents would offer to carry his things or help him with whatever boxes he was carrying. 

Wonwoo slides open the door of the van and immediately jolts himself on the solo seat. Jihoon and Soonyoung sit on the double seat whereas Mingyu sits in front with the teacher to have a chat with him about his plans. 

Their ride to the hotel is almost as long as the flight. Wonwoo doses off 5 minutes before arrival. He feels like he could fall back to sleep any moment but the check-in counter decides they should take the longest time to get them checked in because 30 minutes later, they finally get their keys. 

"Oh yeah, Jihoon-ah who are you staying with?" Wonwoo asks when he realizes Jihoon wasn't there when they decided on the roommate arrangement. 

"I'm alone," he says casually to which he is received by three annoyed faces by his side. 

Mingyu was forced to share rooms with a younger grader because he didn't have anyone to share with and Mingyu was subsequently alone as well. He's definitely the most pissed right now because he could have shared rooms with Jihoon instead of this random kid. 

Soonyoung and Wonwoo are the first to leave and head into the elevator with their suitcases in their hands. They get off on the 5th floor and walk down the hall. Upon entering their room, they both simultaneously plop their bodies on the beds. Wonwoo gets back up to get changed and forces Soonyoung to do the same. Wonwoo decides to head into the shower, when he comes back out, Soonyoung tells him that the teacher is asking everyone to meet at the restaurant for dinner. He changes into his clothes and they both head out. When they close their door, the room across the hall's door opens and Mingyu emerges. 

"Ah," Mingyu says as he sees the other two. 

"You're here?" 

The door next to Mingyu's room opens 

"Ah," Jihoon says as they all face each other. Somehow they all landed up on the same floor and none of them knew. 

'They all head down together and seat themselves in a four-person table." 

Dinner is just as average as any other hotel with a buffet system. Once dinner is over, their teacher stands up to brief them on their schedule for tomorrow along with where they're allowed to go and where they're not allowed. They have to go in pairs but apparently, the seashore is in the green zone is Wonwoo is happy about that. 

"You have the entire day to yourselves tomorrow but please make sure to get back here before 6 pm, that's all," the teacher sits back down. 

"Where are you guys going?" Mingyu asks, knowing that Soonyoung and Wonwoo would be going together. 

"The sea, you?" 

"Oh, I'm the opposite, I'm heading up the mountains to take some drone shots." He looks towards Jihoon. "Jihoon-ah can you team up with me, I don't want to be stuck with another kid," he says, sounding like he's 10 years older than them even though it's only a year. 

Jihoon is basically just there as support and his role comes later when he has to help people out later on when it comes to the editing part with sounds and stuff. 

They disperse after dinner and Wonwoo and Soonyoung head back into their rooms. Wonwoo takes his laptop out and heads over to the desk available in their room whereas Soonyoung just doesn't bother to leave his bed. Wonwoo starts setting up his editing software and doesn't even realize it's half past 11 when he's done. Because he had his earphones plugged in, he didn't even realize Soonyoung had taken a shower, changed, and dipped into bed. He's still awake, busy watching the latest episode of the rom-com drama that is currently a hit throughout the whole of South Korea. Wonwoo shuts his laptop and changes into his pajamas and heads to bed as well. He doesn't realize when he falls asleep. 

The next morning he wakes up at 8, just enough time to get out of bed and get ready for the day. Wonwoo glances over to see Soonyoung dead asleep with his blanket half off the bed and his leg exposed out into the air. He tries to wake his friend up but his friend stubbornly covers himself with his blanket and goes back to sleep. By a quarter past 8, he's ready to go but Soonyoung is still not up. 

"Oi, Soonyoung-ah, you'll be late if you don't get up," and he does. He lazily pours himself out of bed and heads into the bathroom. He comes out with an energy he didn't have a minute ago and changes into his clothes for the day. They head down to the lobby 5 minutes before the meetup time and sees their teacher is already there. He greets them a good morning and they greet him back. It's well past the time that they were supposed to meet up and Mingyu still hasn't shown up. 

"I'll call him," Wonwoo says as the teacher tries to keep his irritated state inside. 

"Hm??" Mingyu says and Wonwoo immediately shuts off the brief moment where his heart played of a string of emotion and switches back to being equally annoyed as the teacher. 

"You're fucking late," he makes sure to say the 'fucking' part quieter so the teacher doesn't hear. 

"Come fast you idiot," he doesn't even give a chance for Mingyu to respond because he cuts the call after he finishes his sentence. 

Mingyu comes down in less than 5 minutes and Wonwoo is relieved because any later than that, he would have snapped at him. 

They are once again reminded of the do's and don't for their project and are actually forced to listen once again because the teacher told them to put their phones away just for 5 minutes saying how they're not gonna die if they don't look at their phones. Once they disperse, Soonyoung calls an uber, and soon they're headed to the ocean. What Wonwoo plans to do once he gets to the ocean is to film the area to later edit into a short 2-minute clip like a trailer to a sappy romance movie. Soonyoung is happy just being his assistant because he doesn't know the first thing about filming or editing but he can hold up a mic and also handle lighting. 

Once they get to the ocean, Wonwoo immediately takes out his camera and films a candid shot of Soonyoung running into the ocean with his back faced to the camera. The second shot is of Soonyoung running his hands through the water as the tide moves in and out and that's how their whole morning goes, basically Soonyoung has unintentionally become his model but after a while, Wonwoo began to take shots of nature and the people who were on the beach so Soonyoung moved back to his original job. At some point, Wonwoo finds this couple who is just sitting on a picnic mat and taking pictures of themselves with the self-timer on a digital camera. Wonwoo asks if he can film this moment and after a bit of convincing them their faces won't be shot, they give him the consent. 

Around noon, Soonyoung complains that he's hungry so they decide to leave the area after packing things up. Wonwoo opens up his phone and sends a quick text to Jihoon. 

_**Wonwoo** _

What are you guys doing for lunch? <

_**Hoonie** _

> Hm 

> Not sure 

> Let me ask Mingyu 

_**Wonwoo** _

Oki <

_**Hoonie** _

> Wanna meet up at _[l_ _ocation]_

Wonwoo clicks to open the google maps link and switches back to message Jihoon back. 

_**Wonwoo** _

Sure we'll be there in 10 minutes <

Wonwoo tells the driver the name of the restaurant when he buckles his seatbelt. The drive is as expected 10 minutes and when they see the restaurant, they see Mingyu and Jihoon outside. They head into the restaurant and seat themselves on the terrace that faces the ocean. It's a great view and Wonwoo doesn't miss this chance to take his camera out. He also takes out his stabilizer to take a moving shot of the overall mood of the restaurant at this time, it's a Sunday so naturally there are families here with their little kids and also grandparents who seem to have never broken their love in what seems to be a long relationship. Wonwoo also takes the shot of the sun as extra footage just as fillers in case he needs them later. Whilst they wait for their food to arrive, Mingyu and Wonwoo share the shots they took. Soonyoung just scrolls through his phone. He's too bothered to move over to Wonwoo and Mingyu's side when he can see it later when they present their final products. Jihoon on the other hand actually leaves his seat and looks at their cameras behind the seated two. When the food arrives, Wonwoo takes a shot of this as well and even takes a shot of the three but with only the bottom half of their faces. They enjoy their meal slowly and even order dessert after because this may be the only time they would get to enjoy some exclusive Jeju desserts. After splitting the bill, they part ways and Wonwoo is too tired to head back to the ocean. He sees a lighthouse on top of the hill that seems pretty close to where they are right now. He asks Soonyoung whether he wants to go there, pointing at it. 

The view from the lighthouse is magnificent, the whole ocean is on view and they can see the restaurant they were just at. Wonwoo asks Soonyoung to just stare at the distance while he takes a shot. They stay there for a while taking shots of the mountains and everything that's around them. The sun is close to setting by the time they're about to leave so Wonwoo waits just a bit more to capture the picture-perfect orange light meeting the horizon. 

When they return to the hotel, they see Jihoon lounging out in the lobby and before Wonwoo can even ask, Jihoon opens his mouth. 

"Teacher wants to take us to the mall for tonight's dinner, Mingyu's probably showering, I finished ages ago," 

"I guess we'll go change too, let's go Won," Soonyoung says as he drags the other by the sleeve. Soonyoung showers first after winning at a mini-game of rock paper scissors. Wonwoo lies on his bed as he waits for his friend to finish showering. Soonyoung comes out faster than Wonwoo expected and without any words exchanged, Wonwoo goes in for a shower as well. He plays his music out loud as he takes the shower but his music isn't loud so he hears the knock on the door. He thinks it's the teacher coming around to tell them about the mall trip so he goes back to focusing on his shower.

"Did Mr. Shin come?" 

"No, it was Mingyu, he came to pick us up but I let him go down first since I didn't know when you'll finish showering," 

"Fair enough," he says as he puts on a shirt, he contemplates wearing a hoodie on top but decides not to after checking the weather forecast. When the elevator doors open, they see people are already getting to the vans so they pace their steps quicker. They're the last to enter the vans so Soonyoung goes to the backseat whereas Wonwoo sits at the front. 

Their van somehow arrives at the mall faster than the van that Jihoon and Mingyu rode so they wait for the other two to arrive. They go up to the mall area from the parking lot and the first stall right after getting off the escalator is a bubble tea shop. Soonyoung and Jihoon walk right past it but Mingyu stops and orders himself one. Wonwoo contemplates for a second before he heads over and orders himself one as well. Jihoon says that he needs to buy himself a new pair of headphones so Soonyoung tags along with him. After getting their drinks, Wonwoo and Mingyu walk deeper into the mall side by side not exchanging words. Wonwoo guesses which shop the other two went into considering Jihoon's standards and without much surprises, they find them there. After Jihoon decides on his new headphones, they agree that they should probably eat something. The mall has a wide range of options so they roam around until they collectively agree on the one they would go to. 

The meal is rather mediocre, they simply talk about their day and also fill in the complaints about the weather because somehow they expericed summer at the beginning of spring on this island. There's nothing much to do in this mall, it's not like they find anything that's exclusive to this area in comparison to what they find in Seoul, and anything that is of particular uniqueness is more of a souvenir than an essential item. They find themselves on the other side of the mall where there's an outdoor parking for the people that come in through the west side. Mingyu eyes two shopping carts left idly by the parking lot and thinks of something. 

"Wonwoo, Jihoon, get it," he says as he heads over to the shopping carts. 

"No way," Jihoon says, backing up as Mingyu pushes the two carts over to the group. 

"Fine, rock paper scissors it is," 

Somehow luck struck Jihoon at this moment because he was the first to be exempt from this. His joy is one that looks like he just won the competition of his life but in reality, the stakes were very low. 

Wonwoo and Soonyoung end up being the losers and so they have to put themselves into the cart. 

"So," Mingyu says as he holds on to the cart that Wonwoo is on. 

"We race until the end of there," he points at the end of the parking lot which looks like it will actually take turns and curves to get to. 

"Oh fuck you, you're obviously going to win," Jihoon protests but his face says otherwise. 

They start the race and they start off at the same pace but eventually, Jihoon gives out and slows down. Mingyu and Wonwoo end up pulling through way ahead of the other team, and on this late spring night, Wonwoo feels the cold breeze run through his hair. He's leaned more towards the left side because the middle bit hurts his back so he glances up at the one pushing the cart and his smile radiates through the dark night; or it's the street lamps every 5 meters. With one leg on the bottom part of the cart, Mingyu pushes himself and Wonwoo with the other leg and at some point even lifts his other feet off the ground to enjoy the ride as well. When Wonwoo looks back, he sees Jihoon and Soonyoung catching up. Wonwoo yells at Mingyu to go faster and he accelerates to the point there's the wind in Wonwoo's face. But right now he can't stop laughing at this moment, 4 teenage boys, racing through a parking lot with shopping carts. He doesn't know if he can call this his youth but right now as he stares at Mingyu, he thinks maybe it could be. 

After the race, they just end up dragging the shopping carts around with Wonwoo and Soonyoung still inside. It's a plus for them cause they don't have to do anything but after a while, their bodies start to ache from the consistent posture they have to sit in. They both stretch at the same time when they get off the shopping carts. It's about time they leave the mall so they head over to the supermarket on the ground floor to stock up on some snacks for their trip back. 

Checking out from the hotel goes by much faster than when they had to check-in and within minutes they're in their vans heading to the airport to leave this island. Wonwoo looks through his footage on camera and thinks how even though this was an official trip, the memories he captured would be something he can look back in the years to come. He lets out a small laugh when he comes across the video he took of Soonyoung getting attacked by a crab as he called it but all that poor animal did was try to escape from the palms of a human. 

The airport process is basically the same as what they did in Seoul except, there are fewer people so quicker runs through the security checkpoints. Somehow their seating arrangement is exactly the same as their first flight. For some reason, their flight takes longer to take off because of the long traffic in front of them so they end up spending 15 minutes on the runway. By the 12th minute, they're all bored of just waiting and not being able to do anything. Mingyu looks like he's about to fall asleep any moment whereas Soonyoung is intensely discussing with Jihoon about the latest episode of the drama. They're probably spoiling the whole story to the people around them but Wonwoo doesn't plan on watching it any time soon so he listens in on them. Their conversation is short because they immediately conclude that the side character that everyone loves is going to get killed off so Wonwoo puts his earphones on one side of his ear and opens a game app. 

"Hey," 

"Yeah?" Wonwoo says as he looks at Mingyu who looks like he's ready to take a 40-hour nap.

"Can I lean on your shoulder?" 

"What?" 

"Ah, it's okay never mind," 

"No no, it's fine, go ahead," Wonwoo says almost like he was on autopilot because at that very moment his mind went blank. 

Mingyu leans his head on Wonwoo's shoulders and almost instantly falls asleep. He's amazed at how fast this guy could fall asleep because right now his heart is doing something that's definitely not at a pace of relaxation. Mingyu doesn't even move when the plane takes off, or when the plane lands because Wonwoo has to shake him awake for the former to leave his shoulders. 

They send off Jihoon first since his parents were there at the airport waiting for him. Wonwoo and Soonyoung wave at the leaving car as they prepare to get back to the school campus as well. 

"Are you going back home or to school?" Soonyoung asks Mingyu. 

"Called my parents, they told me to go back to school," he laughs off. 

They end up sharing a uber back to their school campus. 

Wonwoo leans his head on the glass of the window as he plays whatever playlist showed up first and watches the night lights zoom by. He looks over at Mingyu who's sitting in the front seat of the car, he doesn't know why his heart reacted like that for such a small thing and he doesn't know what he feels anymore. But more importantly, he can't figure out what Mingyu wants or what he feels. 

* * *

_I can't tell how you feel, you're like this firefly._

_I can't hold it, I can't reach it._

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly did not plan to write 12K words for the first chapter, I was this close to splitting this into two because I thought it's too heavy but I was so close to finishing writing anyways so I decided not to ;-; unless you want me to, then let me know ;-; 
> 
> > Update will be between 1-2 weeks depending on how much I procrastinate but no more than 2 weeks ;) 
> 
> (Edit: im sorry I completely forgot about lunar new year and i got caught up in that and didn't have time to write at all, I'll make sure to update as soon as i can, ;-;) 
> 
> (Also this in beta mode so there might be some mistakes I'll fix it soon O>O )


	2. Even though I love you, I just can’t

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long overdue, I'm so sorry this is late, I promise the next one will come out soon ;-;
> 
> Wait i might have forgotten to clarify this or didn't make it as obvious but yes they are in an international school. 
> 
>   
> *Conversations in Japanese are in Italics. (Yes Wonwoo speaks Japanese)

Wonwoo is in denial. 

He doesn't realize that he's in denial but he is. He thought back to a conversation he once had with Soonyoung, they were talking about liking people and other topics in that area and the latter brought up something known as 'reciprocal liking'. Given the guy takes a psychology class he would know more about stuff like this and Wonwoo, at that time, was in the middle of figuring out whether he liked someone or not, so he remembers everything that was mentioned. 

Reciprocal liking is a psychological effect wherein a person tends to like a person who likes them first. Basically, it's a natural response to the comfort of another person giving them positive feelings so they think they like them back as well but it's a facade. Wonwoo is in the middle of believing that this is what it is, that he's simply thinking about Mingyu more recently because of everything that went down in the last couple of months. But Mingyu is taken, and that's always the final thought when Wonwoo is in his daily phase of overthinking. Mingyu seems happy with his current partner and Wonwoo just wants to stop everything. He knows he's the only one overthinking about how Mingyu asked to lean on his shoulders on the plane or how he laughed as he pushed the shopping cart that Wonwoo was in. 

He can't bring this up to Soonyoung or even Jun, because everything Jun knows Minghao knows and everything Minghao knows that relates to Mingyu, will eventually reach him. Even if he could bring it up, what can he say? "I think I like Mingyu but it also might be because he thought I liked him and then I made up this notion in my head that Mingyu thought I liked him cause he liked me?" It's all too confusing even in his own head that he just wants to make time stops so he can take a breather. But how can he even take one when exam season is right around the corner and his mind is not in the right place, to begin with. He decides to put everything aside for now and sort things out later after exam season. Of course, nothing ever goes according to plan when your heart is the main problem and not your mind. 

"We have to move to another classroom since they're going to be using this for exams," their econ teacher says as they take a small break from talking about neoclassical economics. 

"When do we have to move?" one of the students asks just as Wonwoo was about to ask the exact same thing. 

"Next time we have class, it's in room 38, I'll make sure to send you guys a reminder email as well," their teacher says. 

So the next day Wonwoo finds himself standing in front of room 38, not sure if he should go in now since it's still break-time but he wants to get inside the air-conditioned room as soon as possible. He goes inside to see everyone has already found themselves a seat given their idle bags either on a chair or on the table. Wonwoo notices Mingyu's bag on one of the chairs but walks past it knowing right now is not the time to be being close to him in any way. Wonwoo sees a seat open next to Yuta and walks over. 

" _Can I sit here?"_

 _"Yeah sure,"_ Yuta says as he moves his chair away to give the other some space. 

It helps that there are a few Japanese people in this school since it helped Wonwoo talk to them more naturally than he did with his Korean classmates. Given he lived in Japan up until coming to Korea, his spoken Korean was still a bit rusty at the beginning. He only talks to Yuta on the occasion that one needs something from the other or simple small talk when they cross each other in the hallways or in other parts of the campus. 

Wonwoo wonders if he should initiate small talk with Yuta but stops when he sees that the other is busy playing a game on his phone and Wonwoo wouldn't want to disturb that. So he plugs his earphones on and presses his head on to the desk. The teacher comes in after a short while but doesn't say anything as he sets his laptop up for the class. Mingyu barely makes it in time for class to start but is saved by a couple of seconds and the teacher lets him off because Mingyu bribes him with a chocolate bar. 

**_Mingyu_ **

**_>_** Why are you sitting there? 

This question probably came from the fact that in the original classroom, Mingyu and Wonwoo sit next to each other. Wonwoo needs to come up with a good excuse and not one that is "I'm avoiding you," 

_**Wonwoo** _

Can see the board better from here <

**_Mingyu_ **

> It's the same everywhere -_- 

It's true, this is a small classroom where even the back end of the room isn't considered far from the board even for a person with bad eyesight. Wonwoo doesn't have any excuses left so he just sighs and types back his response and locks his phone. 

_**Wonwoo** _

Fine <

Next class <

Next class Wonwoo does end up sitting next to Mingyu but makes sure to keep his distance as much as possible, even putting his bag in between their laptops to act as a barricade. He puts on his earphones once again and places his face on the table to get some shut-eye. He's woken up by something cold pressing on his cheeks and when he opens his eyes, Mingyu is sitting next to him with his left arm holding down the cold bottle on his cheeks. Mingyu lifts off the bottle at the same time as when Wonwoo lifts himself up. Wonwoo gives him the death stare because there are still 5 minutes left to class, meaning 5 minutes that could have been spent in sleep mode. 

"Give me," he says gesturing at the ice tea in Mingyu's hand. He takes a gulp of the cold refreshing drink that literally wakes him back up and closes the bottle and gives it back to the owner. 

"Thanks," Wonwoo says. 

5 minutes later their teacher comes in and hands them out some practice questions to prepare them for the exam. He tells the usual "come to me if you need any help" and gets on with his own work. Half an hour later, Wonwoo is halfway done through the practice question and he drops his head on the table exhausted from drawing the same diagram over and over. He likes the theories and applications of economics but the drawing part of economics is what he hates and it doesn't help that their teacher is so particular when it comes to these diagrams. 

Wonwoo's attention is drawn back when Mingyu pulls Wonwoo's earphones out and Wonwoo looks above at him with the second death glare of the day. 

"What are you listening to?" 

That's when Wonwoo remembered, he had been meaning to share a few tracks he has been listening to lately since they often share music with each other. They both equally love the rock genre ranging anywhere from popular bands to the more extreme side- metal. Although Wonwoo rarely listens to metal, he has taken some interest after Mingyu recommended a couple of songs from his obscenely long playlist. 

"Oh yeah, I wanted you to listen to this," he says as he passes Mingyu one of the sides of his earphones and the other scoots closer to match the length of the earphone. 

"They're a recent upcoming Korean band, and their music is so heavily inspired by the 1975 but I think they also give their own personal touch to their songs," 

"This one," he says as he opens their album and clicks on the second track "is my all-time favorite," 

Wonwoo examines Mingyu's face as they listen to the track that's being played. The first part of the song is very vocal and piano-driven so Mingyu's face finally shifts when all of the drums and the guitar finally starts kicking. He seems to be enjoying the song and comments about the technique used for each part since he's much more knowledgeable in that area and Wonwoo just listens to the music as well as the voice from the person sitting right next to him. When the song gets to the bridge part, Wonwoo tells Mingyu that this is his favorite part and he'll see why soon and Mingyu responds with an equally amused face as the sound of the bass echoes through their earphones. 

"Ohhh, this build-up," Mingyu says as the song heads to its final chorus. Mingyu makes yet another amused sound from his mouth when the final chorus plays and even takes control of the cursor to go back to the specific part. The drums and the guitar are hard-hitting like any other final chorus of a song but what makes it different is the synthesized sound that accentuates the entire part. When the song ends Wonwoo suggests listening to it again but this time only the instrumental version to get a closer feel to all of the authentic sounds without the vocals overshadowing them. 

It seems like Mingyu ignored the lyrics for the most part and Wonwoo is kind of glad he did because ironically it's an emotional song about a relationship that is almost broken because of the love that has gone void. 

"Show me some of their other songs," Mingyu says as the instrumental version comes to an end. 

Wonwoo looks up to see if the teacher has taken any attention to them basically skipping out on work but it seems like the teacher himself is crammed with his own work and is paying no attention to what the students are doing. Wonwoo clicks on the fourth track of the album and explains how it was their debut song but the rock aspect is much more toned down compared to the first song and Mingyu agrees as he listens to it. 

Given that the band doesn't have many songs, they end up going their whole discography till the end of the class, and at the end, Mingyu comments that he liked the first song the most. Wonwoo smiles back as he packs up his things and thinks to himself that he did a good job introducing that song first. 

"Let's go caf?" Jun says as he yanks himself out of his bed. Wonwoo is laying on his side, scrolling through his phone ready to fall asleep any moment. 

"Ughhh, I don't wanna, go without me," Wonwoo yawns through his words and covers himself with his blankets. 

Jun pulls out the blankets and pulls Wonwoo up by the wrists and lifts him off his bed.

"Now you can go," he says as he puts on a hoodie. Wonwoo drags his body to his cupboard and takes out a shirt to change into. As he changes into his clothes, Jun sends a quick voice message to his boyfriend saying that they're leaving their room soon in Chinese but at this point, Wonwoo has heard it enough times to understand that one and only sentence followed by an "I love you," 

"How's exam prep coming along," Wonwoo asks and Jun groans in annoyance clearly indicating that he hasn't started. 

"I mean, I'm fine for Chinese and Maths but I'm dreading English and Biology, especially Biology, I don't understand shit," 

"At least you don't have an exam for art-"

"Yeah but-" Jun tries to make up an excuse but can't seem to find one enough to convince Wonwoo that it is in fact 'fair'. 

They walk towards the cafeteria when they hear Mingyu and Minghao yelling everyone to move as their voices get closer faster than what it would be if they were walking. Jun and Wonwoo turn around at the same time to see Minghao and Mingyu on a bike, a single bike, with Minghao sitting on the handlebar with Mingyu on the seat accelerating on the pedal at full speed. Wonwoo lets out a laugh before taking out his phone to take a video because this is so dumb yet creative in its own ways. When Jun and Wonwoo arrive at the cafeteria, they're waiting at the entrance and Wonwoo still can't stop laughing at the sight he just saw a couple of seconds ago. 

🌿

"So in conclusion, you guys will be having a morning session, a break in between, and then another session, lunch, and then the afternoon session depending on what class you take. Are there any questions?" their exam coordinator says as she heads to her laptop to share everyone into their exam schedule. 

"What do we do if we don't have an afternoon exam?" someone asks from the crowd that is their entire class. 

"You have to stay within campus until school hours are over, that applies to boarders as well, you're not allowed to go back," 

A couple of people groan, annoyed by that rule, the teacher looks back up and tells them to stop complaining about every single thing. 

"Also, if you're open during the second session, you must remain in the library as everyone else will be taking their exams. Only in the break are you allowed to go to 7-11, otherwise other times are prohibited, have I made myself clear?" she says to which she gets a collectively lazy "yes" from everyone. 

"I wish you all the best of luck, make sure you don't cheat," she half-jokes knowing that there are a couple of students here who will most definitely cheat. 

_**Wonwoo** _

Econ study session with everyone in the library after lunch <

Coming? <

_**Mingyu** _

> Sure 

Their first exam happens to be economics and Wonwoo couldn't be happier to get rid of a hard subject in the first week because at least he would be able to study on the Sunday before. But he's still worried whether he'll be able to do the exam properly since the questions are always styled in such a different way than simply remembering concepts and memorizing diagrams wouldn't do the cut. What's even worse is that this teacher tends to give real-life situations taken directly out of the news so it's not just microeconomics or macroeconomics alone. Wonwoo is glad their class decided to have a study session but most of the time big study groups don't really work out because it's always the smart ones answering everything and explaining it in the most confusing way whereas the normal people sit there with the blankest faces.

Wonwoo does end up refreshing his memory about a couple of concepts from microeconomics that they learned early on in the year that was forgotten and discarded ever since they started learning macroeconomics but made himself 10 times more confused about macroeconomics because it was so fresh in his mind that everything he thought he understood was suddenly reintroduced as something completely different. 

He sits at his desk in the living room with a single lamp on since Joshua is a light-sensitive person and requires all the lights to be off even to the extent of the lights in the living room. He doesn't study in his bedroom because he knows if he tries to study on his bed as Jun does, he will fall asleep. He doesn't understand how Jun manages to not fall asleep but everyone has their own methods of studying and the bed is just not Wonwoo's. 

When Wonwoo started studying the night was still young but when he looks at the time, he is shocked to see it's way past 2 AM and he should definitely be sleeping or else he might pass out during the exam. Luckily he'll still have about 5 to 6 hours of sleep if he rushes through his morning routine, which he definitely will. He shuts off his laptop and turns of the lamp and heads into the room. The aircon is blasting as always and Wonwoo turns it down a little bit so he can fall asleep faster. Jun is sound asleep hugging one of his pillows which Minghao gifted to Jun last Christmas. 

"How did you do?" Wonwoo asks as he catches up to Soonyoung who just so happened to come out of his exam hall at the same time. 

"Dead, seriously dead," 

"Same, thank the lords tomorrow's paper is paired with Korean, I am not ready to face this shit," Wonwoo sighs as he walks alongside Soonyoung out into the open. He sees Mingyu sitting on one of the benches scrolling through his phone with the question paper on his side. 

"Mingyu," he calls out and he looks up from his phone. 

"How'd you do?" he asks as he lifts his paper and shakes it. 

"I'll be with Jihoon," Soonyoung says as he walks away from the two of them. 

"I definitely fucked up question 4, I wrote such bullshit I don't know if I'll even get 1 point," Wonwoo says as he sits next to Mingyu. 

"Oh I surprisingly did fine on that one, Yuta came that time and said he also messed up that question so I'm kinda shocked I was fine," 

They continue to discuss the remaining paper joined by other students of the class until they break apart for lunch. 

"Hey, how was day 1 of not having an exam?" Seungkwan jokes at the three art students as he sits down at the table. 

The three aforementioned art students are very much ignoring the fact that they are the lucky ones for having an extra study day to cram everything they learned in the entire year but keep quiet to not piss off anyone at the table. Jun, Jeonghan, and Joshua spend the entire morning and pre-lunch period at the library with Joshua and Jun discussing their upcoming Chinese paper and Jeonghan just taking an extremely long nap in one of the couches. At some point, he was scolded by a teacher that he should be studying but the minute she left he went back into his slumber. Seungkwan is currently ranting his heart out about the dumpster fire that was their business paper with Soonyoung agreeing with him from the side but Minghao interrupting them every 10 seconds to say that the exam wasn't so hard. Jihoon on the other hand just slurps his noodles and watches the whole drama come down. 

Their second paper for Economics/Business is in the morning session but their Korean paper is in the afternoon session so they're lucky enough to have the entire second session to revise for Korean. Naturally, Wonwoo didn't study even an ounce of Korean last night and plans to cram everything after he's done with Economics which might the biggest mistake ever but his desire to sleep overpowered his desire for good Korean grades. 

After their morning exam finishes, Wonwoo and Mingyu exit the exam hall at the same time and walk towards the library together. 

"Wanna go 7 together?" Mingyu says after he puts his bag down on one of the benches outside the library. 

"Sure, I'll walk," he says because he can see Mingyu's bike leaning on the wall of the library. 

"Just get on the front," he says to which Wonwoo was confused for the first 3 seconds until it hit him. 

"No way," 

"Minghao did it, Jun did it with Minghao, you'll be fine," 

"No, I'll walk," 

"Wonwoo," he gives him the stare, "Just trust me, you'll be fine," Wonwoo can't win in this argument. 

"Fine," he says as he takes out his wallet from his bag contemplating if he should have argued more, Mingyu goes to retrieve his bike and comes back riding it, he puts his left feet down, he gestures his head at Wonwoo to come.

"How do I do this?" 

"Okay so you grab here," he wiggles the handlebar "and you lift yourself off by putting your legs on the wheel and then you sit on the handlebar," 

"What if I fall?"

"You won't,"

"You can't guarantee-"

"Wonwoo- you'll be fine, just do it for fucks sakes," 

"Okay okay," 

So he walks towards the bike and does as Mingyu instructed a few seconds ago, when he lifts himself off the ground, he can feel Mingyu keeping his pressure on the handlebars and his feet to support Wonwoo on the front part of his bike. Wonwoo manages to sit on the handlebar which hurts his butt but not as much as he thought it would. Both of his hands are millimeters away from Mingyu's and his legs are awkwardly crossed and resting on the front tire. 

"You good?" he asks from the back and Wonwoo returns with a quick nod. Mingyu tells him to lift his legs up when he starts pedaling and Wonwoo does exactly that. This has got to be the weirdest experience Wonwoo has ever had because normally people sit on the back of a bicycle but in this case, laziness spawns creativity, since Mingyu's doesn't have a back seat. 

Wonwoo can feel Mingyu's breath on his back but he can't help it cause he can't pull his upper body frontwards any further than this. They ride across the campus towards the 7-11 located inside their campus and when they arrive, they meet Minghao and Jun who have arrived here with the exact same method as them. Wonwoo buys a bag of chips to support him through his Korean study session and when he goes to the counter, he sees Mingyu picking out his drink from the line of fridges. Jun and Minghao head back earlier because Joshua is waiting for the both of them and he watches Jun struggle to get on the bike as he did. When he finally gets on he waves a quick bye at Wonwoo and Minghao pedals away. He waits outside for Mingyu to finish his shopping spree and when he does, he gestures his head at the back of the building and Wonwoo doesn't understand at first but it hits him after a couple of seconds and so he follows him. 

Wonwoo still doesn't like the smell and it may be counter-intuitive on Wonwoo's part but he does see this as a small opportunity to have a small chat or a long one depending on how many Mingyu decides to take. When they reach the back, Mingyu opens his pack and takes out one followed by his lighter. Wonwoo keeps a small distance from him to not have the smell come to him or stick to his clothes but close enough so they can hear each other talk. 

There is a silence between the first few puffs Mingyu takes but it's is not awkward. Wonwoo watches as the small puffs of smokes come out of Mingyu's mouth and the way his whole body relaxes at the delight of a cigarette even though he knows it's only a temporary fix. 

"How are you feeling about your exams?" Wonwoo says not sure what he should even talk about but given the time they are in now, it didn't feel wrong to have this as a conversation starter. 

"It's fine, honestly, sometimes I don't get why some of the people in our class are so serious about these things like yeah it matters that you get good grades but it's not everything you know?" Mingyu responds as he takes a puff and taps on his cigarette to let the ashes fall. 

"Hmm," 

"I feel bad sometimes for them like their lives revolve around their grades so much that they're almost nothing if you take that out of the equation." 

"I get you, but honestly parental pressure and the ones we're talking about are mostly Asian so just a societal norm, it's messed up but there's almost nothing we can do but go along with it," 

"Honestly this is what I hate about Asia, like back in France, like everyone had their own thing or something that made them different you know? Of course, it wasn't like everyone had one unique thing but it wasn't all about grades. I don't wanna go back there, I feel more at home here but sometimes I do miss it." 

"I mean, I wouldn't know, I've lived in Asia all my life but I guess being in this school kind of opens your mind to other cultures and how they function as people you know? Like yeah we mostly have Asians here but it's interesting to see people who grew up outside of here or you know people like you," 

They continue to talk about this until Mingyu finishes his cigarette and checks the time to which he stomps on the finished cigarette and takes a gulp from his ice tea. He gestures at Wonwoo if he wants and Wonwoo takes it. They walk back with Wonwoo still drinking the ice tea but finishes it before they get to the bike. Wonwoo throws the empty bottle into the bin and walks over to the bike.

"Yo, Mingyu and Minghao are waiting at the library, let's go?" 

"But we just ate, I need a nap," Wonwoo says as he digs his face further into his pillow. 

"You just took a nap before dinner," Jun says but also dropping on his bed. Wonwoo turns his face to look at his roommate. "3-minute nap?" 

"I'll set the timer," 

3 minutes go by almost too fast and by the 5th minute, they're out of their rooms and into their living room. They catch Joshua and Seungkwan coming out of their own room. "Going library?" Seungkwan asks as he zips his laptop into his bag. 

"Yeah, Joshua you going to the art studio?" 

"Yep," 

They all leave their dorm at the same time but part ways with Joshua after a few minutes. Just as Jun said, Minghao and Mingyu are waiting at the library already seated in the lounge area. They check themselves in for their daily mandatory study session that they have since they're boarders. After checking in, they seat themselves and Seungkwan joins them. Jun is the only one out of the bunch who doesn't study geography and so he runs away to Soonyoung to share their knowledge of the brain and behavior. Meanwhile, the remaining four sit in their own spaces and do their own thing for Geography. Understandably, since geography is not really a subject where discussions arise and individual study seems to be more fitting for this subject. 

Halfway through, Wonwoo's earphones battery runs out and he's stuck with studying in this quiet library where only the sounds of keyboards clicking and breathing can be heard. Wonwoo thinks he can handle this space of silence but after only 5 minutes, he runs out of patience and opts to ask Mingyu if he happens to have his AirPods with him. Mingyu has recently been using his Samsung buds ever since they came out and has left his AirPods neglected on the side. He carries them as a last-minute resort in case his buds die out and Wonwoo knows that so he tests his luck. 

Wonwoo gets up from his seat and goes over to Mingyu, he taps over his shoulder to not startle him. He takes off his buds and looks over his shoulder. 

"You have your Airpods with you?" he whispers close enough to not disturb anyone else who doesn't like to listen to music and study. Mingyu sticks his hand out to his bag and takes it out to hand it out to the requester. 

"Thanks," he whispers. 

"You're not studying Geo?" he asks when he notices Mingyu's physics textbook in front of him. 

"Geo's fine, this is not," he says pointing at his textbook. Wonwoo tries to read at what is at the content of page 79 but fails to understand anything about magnetic field strength and orbital radius. He places his hands on Mingyu's shoulder and just sighs a "good luck" and walks away. For a biology student like Wonwoo, trying to understand the concept of physics in itself is an impossible task. 

Before heading back to his seat, Wonwoo decides to make a quick trip to the bathroom. On the way back, he detours to Soonyoung and Jun's table and decides to listen to whatever they're talking about. At least Psychology is more within Wonwoo's reach of understanding than physics. 

"How much have you guys got up to?" 

Soonyoung lifts up his textbook and shows a small chunk from the thick textbook to show they are nowhere near even a quarter of what they have to study. Wonwoo sees this as his queue to leave and so he puts an end to his 'bathroom break'. 

When they all start leaving the library due to it being closing time, Wonwoo goes to Mingyu to return his AirPods. 

"Keep it"

Wonwoo just stands there confused. 

"Uh, you sure?" 

"Yeah, I don't use it right now anyway," 

"Thanks..." 

He's not really sure what to do or say but he's happy since it's so much easier to use them compared to his regular earphones or his Bluetooth earphones that look ready to collapse any moment. 

Mingyu, Wonwoo, and everyone else who takes this exam are forced to stay in the room until the exam time is over, due to this stupid rule that states that exams under 2 hours must have all students remain until the end. So when the clock finally hits 10 AM, they all leave the room tired from being there since it was so obvious that everyone had finished early judging from the fact that most of them fell asleep on their tables. 

"Easy?" Mingyu asks 

"Hella easy, I don't know why I bothered to study last night,": Wonwoo says kind of regretting that he took the time to read through his entire Geography textbook when he could have spent that time studying for Biology which is the next hell hole that he must go through. 

"7?" 

"Sure," Wonwoo says but pauses for a moment, 

"Please tell me we're walking," 

"You know we're not," Mingyu smiles.

Wonwoo has managed to keep his mind shut off for the particular topic that he would very much like to avoid for as long as he can. It's like he hasn't thought of his own feelings and what they are whenever he's around Mingyu, but for the most part, he's actually managed to keep his thoughts in place. But something about Mingyu's smile switched that mindset off. It wasn't like his heart did twists and turns or there were butterflies in his stomach, in fact, it's the exact opposite, the lack of any feeling throws him off guard, he knows he feels something for Mingyu that's different from just being friends but the lack of any sort of signs from himself makes him question himself. He has liked people before, he knows what it feels like and it's not like this.

Mingyu is talking about something on the way to the bike rack most probably about their recent exam but Wonwoo is on autopilot respond mode. He thinks that maybe he feels like he only likes Mingyu because that is what Mingyu expected from him, Jun did mention that even when he was defending his best friend, his boyfriend was agreeing to what Mingyu was saying. That Wonwoo does like Mingyu. So maybe, his subconscious is just answering the assumptions that people have verbally said out loud. Maybe if Mingyu had never told them, maybe if Minghao had never agreed, maybe if Jun never brought it up, he would see Mingyu's smile and just admire him for the friend he has been for the last few years. 

Wonwoo's thoughts are finally cut to the end when they reach the bike rack, Mingyu takes the bike out and takes it out to an area where it's less congested so that Wonwoo can get on. Wonwoo gets on like last time but this time with much more comfort. Mingyu lets his feet off the ground and begins to pedal. Wonwoo doesn't know what to think- more like thoughts are overflowing to the point where Wonwoo can't catch all of them. Wonwoo is leaning a bit to the left so that Mingyu can see from his right.

One of the gardeners is heading their direction on his rickshaw that is filled with plyboards, Wonwoo in the middle of his overthinking just thinks "oh looks heavy to pedal" but the gardener makes one mistake which almost leads them to crash. Mingyu makes an extreme swivel which throws Wonwoo off guard leading him to grab Mingyu's wrists. He only realizes after they have evaded the potential disaster and he is stuck between keeping them there or shifting his hands back to where they originally were. His brain is on a loop of the word "shit" and right now he is glad Mingyu can't see his face and he can see his either. Wonwoo could only move his hands because of the adrenaline that overcame him at that moment but right now he thinks and knows that if he shifts his hands back, he will actually fall off the bike from loss of balance. 

"Shit, Mingyu sorry about this," he manages to spell out 

"Oh, it's okay, I also thought that guy was gonna throw us into the bushes," he laughs. 

Wonwoo can only evade the eyes of the bypassers not because Wonwoo is literally sitting on the handlebar of a bike but because he doesn't want to look at anything right now. Wonwoo weirdly finds this more comfortable but he thinks it's cause his arms have more room to breath instead of sticking to the sides of his torso. 

"I want to hide in a hole and never come back out," 

"Same," Soonyoung replies as they exit what was possibly the most hellish exam they had ever faced. They sit on the bench outside the exam hall and just stare into oblivion. Jihoon soon follows them and comes out with the same dead expression on his face. 

"Let's not talk about it," he says as he sits on the bench after Wonwoo and Soonyoung scoot over to make space for him. 

"Agreed," 

Mingyu, Seungkwan, and Joshua come out of their own exam room almost mirroring the three sitting on the bench. 

"How was it?" Wonwoo asks Mingyu looking up at him. 

"It was fine," but that last 'fine' did not sound fine at all. His voice became weaker and Wonwoo can probably guess what happened. If his biology exam hard then he doesn't even want to imagine what the Physics exam looks like. Seungkwan walks over to the dustbin and literally dropkicks his paper into the dustbin and starts fake crying. 

"Fucking hell," Mingyu says as he runs his hands through his hard, "I need a breather, Won wanna go 7?" 

Wonwoo just nods and lifts himself off his seat, he wants to ask if Soonyoung and Jihoon want to go as well but they've gone into intense discussion and regret mode which Wonwoo would very much not like to be apart of right now. 

"Wait, I'll come with you," Joshua says from the back and they head to the store as a three. This time they walk and somewhere Wonwoo is glad Joshua decided to join them. 

Behind the store, Joshua and Mingyu simultaneously light up their cigarettes as Wonwoo bites into his ice cream because that is his personal form of relaxation. 

"What the shit was that?" Joshua starts as he lets out a breath. 

"Please let's not talk about it," Mingyu says as he leans his back against one of the walls. 

"Was it really that bad?" Wonwoo asks from his side which is naturally distanced like always. 

"Literal hell," Joshua says as he takes another hit. 

Wonwoo doesn't really understand why people enjoy cigarettes so much but what he learned from his biology class, it's the nicotine that attacks the nerves in your brain thus giving you the impression that you're relaxing your stress and anxiety. But the reality is that due to the addictive nature of cigarettes, people naturally get withdrawal symptoms and having that one puff of cancer stick temporarily reduces those symptoms leading to a never-ending cycle. 

He knew they were addictive and naturally, he has real-life exhibits in front of him, but somewhere in him, he can sympathize with the feeling of wanting to fix something the short way because sometimes the short way is the only way. 

Their last exams of Maths and English pass by quicker than they thought it would and now their exam season has finally come to an end. Through the week, Wonwoo is less confident about keeping his promise he made at the beginning of exam season which was "put everything aside for now and sort things out later after exam season". Before he even realises, he's always with Mingyu, whether is heading to the 7-11 together or studying together despite not being in the same class for Maths or English. Of course, Jun and Minghao are there too but they're in their own world of being a couple. Soonyoung seems to always be with Jeonghan and Jihoon, given that Soonyoung shares more classes with Jihoon and he and Jeonghan have been friends longer than Wonwoo has been in this school. It's not like they never studied together but somehow the time with Mingyu has dramatically increased in this short amount of time. 

Wonwoo is glad he has this one-weekend post-exams and then two weeks until they break into the summer break. Wonwoo is excited to finally be able to return to Japan and relax a bit, away from this bullshit they call high school. 

Wonwoo sleeps through almost the entire weekend, only leaving his bed for a light snack and the occasional toilet break. His first proper meal in two days is the food Jun brings back for him to which he is scolded for because Jun always pesters him about this repetitive behavior but in the end, gives into Wonwoo's persuasion and excuses. 

As Wonwoo munches through the amazing mala xiang guo that Jun brought back, Jun tells Wonwoo that everyone is having a Saturday night out as a way to celebrate the end of their exams. Wonwoo says he'll think about it. Jun nags at him telling him that he shouldn't miss out on this one since it will be the last one for the year and he isn't wrong but Wonwoo is too bothered to go out. At the same time, he knows his intense fear of missing out will haunt him but right now his two sides are battling it out as he seriously thinks about it. He thinks about it so much that it's already Monday afternoon and he's sitting in the Korean classroom alone ready to fall asleep after the meal he just had. 

Mingyu walks into the classroom and even greets him but he doesn't respond, keeping his face down on the table. Mingyu usually sits across the room from Wonwoo but Mingyu drags out a chair and sits next to Wonwoo. 

"Wonwoo," 

"Yeah?" he says keeping his face down on the table. 

"You coming this Saturday?" 

"I don't know," he says,

"Come~" 

"I'll think about it," 

"Wonwoo," god, he knows Mingyu is staring at him, he always does this when he calls out his name. 

"Okay, okay, I'll ask my parents." he turns his face to look at Mingyu. 

"Not ask, tell," 

"But-" 

"Wonwoo..." He pauses for a few seconds "Come on, even Soonyoung and Jihoon are coming this time,"

"But where do I even stay, I can't just rent an Airbnb myself," 

"I'm staying over with the two Chinese, you could probably fit too," 

"In that small apartment with one bed and one couch? I doubt it," 

"You can sleep on the couch, I'll squeeze in the couple," 

Wonwoo laughs out loud just imagining the two couple snuggling against each other and then Mingyu third-wheeling on the side. 

"So you'll come?" 

"Yeah I will," he smiles which receives a smile back. 

🌿

"You're renting a bike?" Wonwoo asks after overhearing a conversation between Mingyu and Minghao. 

"Yeah, I usually go to this one place where they allow for like daily rentals and stuff. " 

"You have a license?" 

"Yeah, got it right after I turned 16," Mingyu explains how he was taught by his father when he was 15, and when he finally got to 16, he took the test and passed with flying colors. Very much the opposite of Wonwoo whose parents won't allow him until he turns 18 because that is the "right" age. 

"You wanna come with me when I go pick it up?" Mingyu asks. 

That throws Wonwoo off cause he needed to think back to a second ago to make sure he even heard the question right. He doesn't know what to answer since he wasn't even expecting Mingyu to ask him to go with him.

"Uhh.. Helmet?" 

"I own one so you can get the one they give at the shop," 

From the fact that Wonwoo has always idealized bikes because he finds them much more convenient than cars, he is excited for the day that is to come this weekend. 

The week goes by just as a week should after exam season, students being lazy to study, watching movies in for English class because the teacher is too lazy to come up with something new to teach just for two weeks, the maths teacher giving mini-projects which is not counted towards their grades so no one bothers to do them and the science teachers trying to combine all of the classes together to do fun "science projects" as a time pass. They have yet to get their graded papers so this weekend seems fit to go all out and then come back to the reality of everyone's shitty exam grades. 

Jun and Minghao leave on Friday before they have to deal with Wonwoo and Mingyu staying over the next day. Wonwoo goes over to Seungkwan and Joshua's room to watch a horror movie only for Joshua and Wonwoo to both end up passing out and Seungkwan forcing them awake to finish the movie with him. 

Wonwoo packs his things into a small backpack so it's easier for him to carry once they get on the bike. Around noon when Mingyu shoots Wonwoo a text about whether he is ready to go and Wonwoo just sends a thumbs up. Wonwoo makes sure to knock on Seungkwan and Joshua's door before leaving that he's off and that he'll see them later. Mingyu is waiting at the gate of the campus leaning against one of the lamp posts. 

"You only have that?" Wonwoo asks when he doesn't spot any duffle bags or overnight bags that could have his change of clothes and other necessary things. He only has a fenny pack and his helmet which is resting on the ground. 

"Minghao took it yesterday, too lazy to carry that and bike." 

"Ah..." 

"Oh, our uber is here," 

Their ride in the car is quiet. Mingyu has fallen asleep with his buds blasting whatever music he's into these days and Wonwoo is just looking out the window as the city of Seoul passes by. Mingyu finally wakes up 3 minutes before arriving at the rental shop almost like his body has an inbuilt GPS system. Mingyu ends up paying the driver after much argument with Wonwoo who protested that they should split the bill. 

Wonwoo watches from outside as Mingyu greets the shop owner in a very casual manner making him guess that Mingyu is a frequent customer. Wonwoo watches as Mingyu puts his palms together and judging from the way the shop owner laughs, Mingyu got the discount. Mingyu comes back and hands him a helmet as he takes he heads over to one of the bikes. Wonwoo struggles for the first few seconds and he navigates his way to buckle it up but finally finds the correct method to put it on. Mingyu brings out a sliver bike with a black undertone, he puts his own helmet on and turns on the bike. He waits for Wonwoo just stands there unsure how to even get on the bike in the first place.

"Oh!, Yeah," he says as he remembers to put down the footrest for Wonwoo. 

Wonwoo gets on the bike which is much more elevated than he expected so in this particular case, he's looking down at the back of Mingyu's head. He takes about 5 seconds to decide where to place his hands and just settles for Mingyu's shoulders. That way he can still have a grip but doesn't have to go through the nerve-wracking task that is crossing his arms over the other's waist. 

"You good?" 

"Yep," 

They drive away from the store and turn into the highway. The traffic is not as heavy as Wonwoo anticipated so Mingyu gradually speeds up. They surf through the cars that run on the same highway as them. Wonwoo views the city of Seoul with a pair of eyes he has never had. Something about being in a car and being on this bike makes things so different, maybe it's the fact that there is no frame that closes them in a finite amount of space, maybe it's the wind cutting through his clothes or maybe it's that he feels liberated right now. Just the way they don't have to wait at the back of multiple cars when they stop at a red light or how Mingyu opens his face shield so his voice isn't covered off when he talks to Wonwoo or how Mingyu looks from the back as he checks his phone to see if they're heading towards the correct direction. 

They park outside the building where there are multiple other bikes lined up. Mingyu removes his helmet and puts it in the helmet compartment. Wonwoo just holds on to his not knowing what to do. 

"Oh, just take yours upstairs, it's gonna get stolen," 

They walk into the apartment and Mingyu just takes out the key from his wallet and Wonwoo just looks at it in confusion. 

"Minghao's copy," he says answering the unasked question from Wonwoo. 

They get off the elevator and walk towards the apartment, Mingyu makes sure to knock loudly once just in case there was something going on behind those doors. He sticks the keys in and opens the doors. Luckily for their eyes, Jun is just folding the blankets but Minghao is nowhere to be seen. 

"Taking a piss," Jun says before either of them can ask the question. 

"Where's my bag?" Mingyu asks and Jun just points in a direction until Mingyu's eyes follow. Mingyu looks through his bag and takes out a shirt to change into. He also takes something out from his fenny pack. "Can I?" he asks at Jun. 

"Outside," 

Wonwoo just sits on the couch scrolling through his phone and watches Mingyu disappear into the balcony for a quick smoke. 

"Oh hey Wonwoo, where's Mingyu?" Minghao asks when he comes out of the bathroom. Wonwoo does a smoking motion with his hand lazy to open his mouth to talk. 

Mingyu comes back in after he finishes and Wonwoo tries to hide it as much as possible on his face but he really doesn't like the smell. Mingyu sits on the couch next to Wonwoo and scrolls through his own phone. Wonwoo doesn't understand why he's suddenly feeling so tired but if he says he wants to stay back, they're obviously going to get mad so he tries his best to not yawn. 

"You guys have water?" 

"Yeah in the fridge," 

Wonwoo walks over to the fridge and pours himself a glass of cold water in hopes that it would wake him up even the slightest. It does actually work but now his laziness of going out is starting to kick in and that's not something a little rehydration will fix. Wonwoo goes back to the couch and just watches the time go by. 

After about an hour, Jun's phone starts ringing and he lazily stretches his arms to take it off its charger and answers the phone.

"Yeah? Oh really? We'll be there soon. Who all are there? Oh, shit are we the only ones missing? Okay okay, we're coming." Jun cuts the call. 

"Guys?" he manages to get everyone's attention. "Everyone's already there, let's go," 

"Oh, Mingyu can I put my wallet and phone in your tiny bag there, I might accidentally drop it," 

"Sure," 

"Just called our uber, Hao you good to go?" 

Somehow when they all get down, Minghao and Jun's uber is already waiting outside. Mingyu and Wonwoo watch as the couple drive off before them. 

"Let's go?" 

"Yeah sure, let me- just- get the hang of- this- shit," Wonwoo says as he struggles to find the buckle of the helmet. 

Mingyu walks towards Wonwoo and grabs the two dangling buckles on the side. Wonwoo watches Mingyu's face at a distance so close, he feels the only thing separating them right now is the helmet. 

"Thanks-" Wonwoo says but is cut off with Mingyu hitting Wonwoo's helmet from the top and just chuckles as he walks back to put on his own. 

Wonwoo looks up at the sky and how the trees make a silhouette with the myriad of orange colors indicating that they're nearing nighttime. 

Mingyu starts up the engine and slowly backs up the bike. "Won?" 

"Oh sorry," he says and climbs on top of the bike.

The traffic is much heavier than earlier and it seems like they will be arriving later than expected. At some point, they are stopped by a red light and as Mingyu drags the bike with his two feet through the traffic, Wonwoo looks to his left to see Jun and Minghao in their uber. Wonwoo starts laughing and Mingyu looks in the same direction and he also lets out a tiny laugh. As the light turns green, the two drive away from the couple leaving them in their stationary state as the cars slowly start moving. 

They arrive at the bar at around 6:30 PM which means they took at least 30 minutes to get there.

"Phone?"

"Oh yeah, thanks, almost forgot," 

They walk into the bar to see Jeonghan, Soonyoung, Jihoon, Seungkwan, and Joshua all seated at a table outside. 

Jun and Minghao shortly arrive later walking in holding hands and getting the coos from the seated people. 

Jeonghan, Soonyoung, Jihoon, Seungkwan, and Joshua all have drinks in their hands and Mingyu also went to get his own but for some reason, Wonwoo doesn't feel like drinking tonight. He knows this was meant to be a celebration but right now he's fine with just chugging massive amounts of water or juice. 

"You want something?" Jun asks when he gets up from his seat and Wonwoo just shakes his head no. 

"You sure?" 

"Yeah, just not feeling it tonight," 

"Oh okay," Even in their short time of friendship, Jun has learned when to not push Wonwoo into things like this and just make sure he's comfortable enough. Or it could be the fact that if he forces his best friend, it might become the last time he ever comes out and he definitely doesn't want that. Either way, he's thankful for the consideration. 

The night goes on, as usual, people begin to ease into the alcohol, people begin to start feeling the alcohol, and small talk turns into deep emotional talks or loud rowdy arguments, there's no in-between. Soonyoung becomes louder as the night passes and his hidden confidence is starting to show. He and Jeonghan go up to random strangers and begin talking to them introducing themselves as Wonwoo watches from the back. Wonwoo still hasn't had a sip of alcohol and he doesn't plan to even if someone were to push it on to him. 

Some of their classmates come in greeting everyone there, a couple of them greet Wonwoo and Wonwoo just greets back. They begin to initiate small talk with him, asking him how his exams went and other school-related stuff because that's the only thing that links them so Wonwoo goes along, just answering whatever comes in his mind. 

"Hey, you guys wanna come for a smoke?" Mingyu comes to ask. Jeonghan and Joshua naturally get up grabbing their own cigarettes. 

"Soonyoung, Jihoon?" Mingyu looks at. Wonwoo looks at the two of them and it's so clear on their faces that they want to try. Wonwoo doesn't want to say anything but it's so clear that they're waiting for him to say something. Wonwoo would obviously want them to not do it, it's never a "once and done" system. People get hooked so easily, but at this point, Wonwoo knows that further restricting them or shoving his own ideologies on them will make them rebel even further in the future. 

"Go, it's fine," he says, making sure he doesn't sound too passive-aggressive but just enough to make sure they get the hint. 

"Wonwoo?" Mingyu asks, even though he knows the answer. Wonwoo shakes his head and Mingyu heads to the smoking corner with the others. 

Wonwoo knows why everyone asks because smoking is a method of social interaction, many people share a smoke and talk about whatever is on their mind because of the ease that they feel each time they inhale on the cancer stick and he knows this is the age where everyone wants to try, but at this point, everyone should just take the hint that no matter in any situation Wonwoo will never be interested. It's just his personal preference. He might sometimes push his agenda onto other people and they know he means well but it does come off as overprotective, so he lets Soonyoung and Jihoon live a little today. 

But that doesn't change the fact that he's worried to hell about what kind of path this could start, should he have stopped them? He knows there's only so much a person can influence on another person but what if he comes to regret it in the future? These kinds of thoughts suddenly envelope in his mind. Jun and Minghao seem to have caught on because they can see the worried look on his face. He puts his thoughts into words but naturally, the only thing they can say is that it'll be fine and that eventually, they're going to have to come to terms with it. 

They come back to the table after 15 minutes. 

"How was it?" Wonwoo immediately asks, praying deep inside that Soonyoung hated it and won't ever do it again. 

"Hated it, never doing it again," 

"Ah..." somehow Wonwoo knows that his friend is lying. Somehow he can tell, it's exactly what happened the first time Soonyoung drank, he was so repulsed against it but was equally drawn to it. Wonwoo knows, he should have stopped him. Wonwoo doesn't really know why he's trusting his instincts in this very moment but he can tell that the two people who tried out smoking tonight, are set to go on two very different paths. 

They dive into the night further, Wonwoo is very much tired from the amount of socializing he has had to do today and he's not sure water can keep him awake anymore. 

They're all moderately tipsy, nothing too wild except for the one time the bartender brought them shots paid by Seungkwan, and Wonwoo gave his one away to some classmate that just happened to be passing by. Seungkwan tried to hype Wonwoo up to convince him to drink but at that point, it wasn't even the unwillingness to drink that was stopping Wonwoo, he was just genuinely tired. 

Around 10 PM, Jun and Minghao decide to leave and they come up to Wonwoo to ask him if he wants to leave as well. Wonwoo watches as Mingyu socialized with some of their classmates and Wonwoo thinks of the worst thing that could happen. He can't leave Mingyu alone. 

"You know what I'll stay, I'll come back with Mingyu," 

"You sure? You know he's fine, right? He can come back on his own," Jun says 

"I know but... I don't want to repeat last time's incident and I have a feeling that if I stay, Mingyu would be more careful about his intake choices you know? Because I'm at the back so he has the responsibility. "

"Right..." 

"You really sure though Wonwoo? You look tired." Minghao interjects. 

"I am, but I'm more worried about Mingyu, you guys can go ahead first, I'm sure we won't stay for long," 

Stay for long, they did. Jeonghan, Soonyoung, and Jihoon, after two rounds of beer pong with random people and multiple shots, end up dipping early to so that they don't go wilder than they already have. That is around 10 PM. Seungkwan and Joshua stay for longer but eventually ends up leaving after an hour. Wonwoo is sitting right next to Mingyu but Mingyu is busy talking to their classmates about something that Wonwoo couldn't even care about because at this point he might fall asleep in the bar in his most sober state. Wonwoo begins to wonder if Mingyu even cares if Wonwoo was here or not, maybe he would have had a better time getting drunker and higher if he weren't here. But Wonwoo worries for the guy, beyond his confusing feelings for the guy right next to him, he worries about him, how he doesn't know where the limit is, how he could be destroying his body with every weed or alcohol or both that he takes in. Wonwoo looks at his face sleepily and knows that he would want him to live his life for as long as he can. He knows that he wants him to grow up, age a bit, fulfill his dreams, start drawing wrinkles on his face, and grow old, even if it's not with him. 

Wonwoo's heart pains for a moment, he doesn't even know how to describe these feelings right now but he just knows, he wants Mingyu to be happy. 

"Mingyu?" 

"Yeah?" he turns around. 

"When can we go?" 

"In a while, can you wait a bit?" 

"Yeah, it's fine." 

That "wait a bit" drags on until closing time which is midnight for this particular bar since they can't risk having underage kids for longer than they already have. The bar manager comes to kick everyone and Mingyu's small group disperses. Mingyu looks back at a half-asleep Wonwoo and apologizes.

"It's fine, let's go?" 

They get to the bike and Wonwoo gives his things to Mingyu, Mingyu puts on his helmet and helps Wonwoo with his again. 

They drive off from the bar and into the night traffic. They come to a stop at a red light and Wonwoo just sighs turning his face and slowly leaning onto Mingyu's back. 

"You okay?" Mingyu asks. Wonwoo isn't sure what prompted the question, the sigh or the lean. 

"Yeah no I'm just tired," he brushes off. 

"No, what's wrong Wonwoo? I'm here, talk to me." He says as he opens his face shield. 

I think I like you. Obviously, he can't just bring that up right now, what can he even expect. The last time Wonwoo checked, BamBam is still in the picture even though it's long-distance and as much as Wonwoo would like to just express every emotion in his mind, he just can't. 

I don't know what I'm feeling and I want you to explain it to me. 

Instead, Wonwoo brings up the second thing that was bothering him tonight. It's not necessarily a lie but at this moment, he's lying to himself. 

"It's just Soonyoung and Jihoon," 

"What about them? The smoking thing?" 

"Yeah," 

"They'll be fine. You don't have to worry so much Won, they're mature enough to realize what's good for them." 

"That's true but-" 

"They'll figure it out Won," 

"I guess..." 

The light turns green and Mingyu puts his face shield back down and lifts his leg off the feet. They finally turn to the highway and suddenly all of the cars disappear. The road is empty and Wonwoo leans towards Mingyu's ears. 

"You can go faster, I'm not scared," 

"Okay," so as Wonwoo watches the km/h increase by the second, he feels the breeze become stronger. The emptiness of the highway, the darkness of the night lit only by the road lights, and the feeling that they're the only ones in this moment right now. Wonwoo closes his eyes and lets one of his hands off Mingyu's shoulders to feel the wind cut through his fingers. 

He feels so alive. 

He could remove both hands and stand on his feet right now, 

The feeling is so different from what he felt during the day, if what he felt was liberating during the day, right now he feels like he could fly. Right now his mind is so clear, he forgets that minutes ago, he was dwelling on his feelings for the person he is with right now. They go through an underground pass and the lights flicker as each of them passes by in micro-seconds. As they come back up, Wonwoo looks up to look at the few stars he can see through the city lights and he catches one that is so dim, it looks like it's about to die off. But right now he feels like he could reach out and catch it. 

Disappointment surely comes when they leave the highway and slow down to go into the street that the apartment is on. The bike comes to a stop and Wonwoo feels like he could never feel like that anymore. Gradually, Wonwoo's initial tiredness returns to him. They repeat the process from that time only this time when they enter the apartment, the couple is fast asleep in their bed. They're woken up by the door opening and the noise that the two arrivals create.

"God, what time is it?" Minghao slurs. 

"No idea," Wonwoo responds to which he checks his wristwatch to see 1 AM.

"You're sleeping on the bed right Gyu?" Minghao asks but all of these conversations distance themselves for Wonwoo as he falls into his slumber. 

When he wakes up, his jacket is hanging on the chair, he's covered with a blanket and his phone is charging by his side. His wristwatch is also off his wrists so he taps his phone to check the time. 5 AM. Wonwoo doesn't remember falling asleep but right now he needs a sip of water because he feels severely stripped of his fluids. He walks over to the fridge, making sure he doesn't wake anyone up. As he comes back with his glass of water, he sees Mingyu facing the wall whereas the couple cuddled up to each other. Wonwoo opens his social media apps but becomes too tired to scroll through anything so he chugs his water and goes back to sleep. 

Jun sees Wonwoo sitting on the couch as he rubs his eyes still tired from last night. 

"Slept well?" he asks the guy sitting on the couch.

"Yeah, I guess," Wonwoo says after he removes his left earphone. 

"You passed out right after reaching here," 

"Oh yeah, I don't remember falling asleep," 

"Why were you guys so late, what were you even doing?" 

"No clue, I literally just sat there," 

Jun raises an eyebrow at him but doesn't say anything and heads into the bathroom. 

"What time do you need to return the bike by?" Wonwoo asks as he folds the one blanket he had covering him throughout the night. 

"1 PM" 

"Oh we have about an hour, let's leave in about 15 minutes?"

"Sure," Mingyu says lazily still in bed.

Wonwoo digs through his clothes and realizes he only brought one shirt that's too nice to be worn on a bike.

"Uh, hey Mingyu?" 

"Yeah?" 

"Can I borrow a shirt?" 

Mingyu gets up from the bed and walks towards his bag. He takes out a black band t-shirt and passes it to Wonwoo. 

"Thanks," 

Jun comes into the room to see Wonwoo wearing a shirt that's clearly not his and he wiggles his eyebrows at his best friend and lets out a small laugh. Wonwoo throws a finger at him and he just continues wiggling his eyebrows. Wonwoo rolls his eyes and goes back to his bag to pack things up. 

"Okay well, see you in half an hour," Wonwoo says as he closes the door to Jun and Minghao's apartment. 

The two go back to the shop to drop off the bike, Mingyu boasts at the owner telling him he came back with no scratches this time and Wonwoo can only imagine that there is a story connected to that sentence. They go back on an uber and meet up with Jun and Minghao at a restaurant so they can have one good meal before going back to school. Their choice of cuisine- Italian. After a heavy meal of carby goodness, they leave the restaurant and call an uber for all of them to get back to school. 

By the time they arrive back at school, it's late afternoon and it's starting to show in the sky. After they leave the car, Jun and Minghao kiss goodbye with Jun going with his roommate and Minghao going with his. Because they proudly came to this school as a couple, their dorms were separated for obvious reasons and are strictly prohibited from entering one another's. Wonwoo thinks it's a bit of a stretch but rules are rules, even if they're dumb. 

As Jun and Wonwoo walk back to their dorm, Jun abruptly clears his throat in an obvious manner, catching Wonwoo's attention. He gives out a tiny little smirk just enough to piss his roommate off once again. 

"So, boyfriend t-shirts huh?" 

"He's not my boyfriend," 

"Uh-huh sure," he says not being able to take the biggest grin off his face. 

'Fuck off," Wonwoo says as he opens the door to their dorm. They see Seungkwan and Joshua have already arrived back given that their bags are on top of the living room couches but as Wonwoo peaks into their room, it seems like they aren't there right now. Jun and Wonwoo both go into their rooms and change into their usual attire with Wonwoo folding Mingyu's shirt to return. 

"Anyways, I'm taking a nap," Jun says as he jumps into bed and covers himself with his blankets not even giving a chance for Wonwoo to say anything. 

After dinner, Joshua and Seungkwan invite the other two into their room to just chat up about their summer vacation plans and other things. 

As they munch on snacks and run out of things to talk about, Seungkwan suddenly remembers something judging from how he literally jolted his body. 

"So, Wonwoo?" Seungkwan starts. 

"A little birdie told me you borrowed Mingyu's shirt today," 

"Oh Jun fuck off," Wonwoo says as Jun creates a barricade with Joshua's pillow to protect himself. 

"Actually, uh," Wonwoo starts. 

"I think I like Mingyu," Wonwoo says and is expecting an immediate answer from the other three but is met with silence. 

"Oh my god, we know," Joshua breaks the silence. 

"I mean you guys have serious sexual tension," Seungkwan says 

"The fuck does that even mean?" Wonwoo says 

"You know, sexual tension~," Seungkwan says in a lower register. 

"Just please don't tell anyone," Wonwoo says knowing that he can trust his roommates but not anyone in this class. A class where rumors fly so fast, it's almost impossible to diffuse the situation once it's blown up. 

"We know," 

"Also, Wonwoo, finally?? We've been waiting for you to tell us for so long we even started making bets on how long it would take for you to tell us," Joshua says. 

"Fuck- am I that freaking obvious?" 

"Yeah you are," Seungkwan says as he places his palm on Wonwoo's shoulders and stages a disappointed look. 

"Jun? Wonwoo? You have to go back to your room," the teacher says as he comes in knocking on the door. 

"Okay, I guess good night," 

"Good night," Joshua and Seungkwan say at the same time as the other two exits from the room. 

As Wonwoo plops down onto his bed, realization suddenly dawns on him. 

"Wait- does this mean Minghao knows," Wonwoo raises his head to ask Jun. 

"Yeah of course," 

"Oh my fucking god," Wonwoo says as he shoves his face into his pillow.

"Actually, Minghao and I think he likes you," 

* * *

_I want to hold you tight but I can’t._

_My dreams scatter and fall._

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof sort of cliffhanger~ 
> 
> Once again, ended up writing way more than I should have so at this point these 10K+ words might as well become the norm. Unless it's too heavy then please let me know!!! 
> 
> Comments and Kudos are always appreciated, they really make my day and I get so excited to reply to them <3 
> 
> ❖ The first song that Wonwoo and Mingyu listened to: The Rose- Baby, second song is Sorry.
> 
> (Beta mode, sorry if there are typos or errors)


	3. Till the end of the long night

"Not this bullshit again, literally not dealing with this again," Wonwoo says annoyed that a particular history might repeat itself. 

"No seriously I'm not kidding," 

"Yeah but Minghao also thought I liked Mingyu back in January so I don't trust either of your judgment," Wonwoo says, Jun is about to say something but Wonwoo beats him to it. 

"Also, are we forgetting the main person in question has a boyfriend? Which, mind you, you're the one who set him up with," 

"They're probably gonna break up," 

"Yeah sure, as if we can decide that for him. Look, just cause I like him doesn't mean I want to date him, he seems happy with your friend and I shouldn't get in the middle of that, so can we just leave it?" 

"Aren't you curious as to why Minghao thinks you like him though?" Jun says with a smirk knowing that Wonwoo is curious but just trying to downplay it as nothing. Wonwoo looks at him with an annoyed face but Wonwoo just lets out a small nod to which Jun just lets out a small laugh because his best friend is so obvious to read. 

"Let's ask him tomorrow yeah," 

"Okay good night," Wonwoo says as he covers himself with his blanket. 

"Oh my god, look at Wonwoo blushing," 

Wonwoo grabs his pillow and throws it at his roommate which he successfully throws directly at the receiver's face. 

"You're not getting this back," Jun says as he removes the pillow from his face.

"I can sleep without it," Wonwoo says and tucks himself into his blanket even further. 

"Ah, so he finally admits, what do you want to know young love?" Minghao says as Wonwoo and Jun sit themselves down in the corner of the library, far away from everyone. 

"Just tell him our theory," Jun tells his boyfriend. 

"That would be too boring, wouldn't it? Let's crack down some questions from Wonwoo first," 

"Oh, are you fucking kidding me?" Wonwoo says ready to leave his seat.

"Okay, okay sit back down, I'll ask the questions later," 

"So?" Wonwoo says as silence begins to envelop their area.

"Mingyu... acts differently around you, like in a way I've never seen before," 

"What do you mean?" 

"You know when you passed out that night?" 

"Yeah?" 

"Mingyu was the one who put the blanket on you, he was the one who charged your phone and took off your watch," 

Wonwoo widens his eyes, he was under the impression that Jun did it for him and that's why he didn't mention anything because that's just things friends do for each other. 

"Yeah but," Wonwoo thinks his argument quickly, "That's just being nice, he could have done that for anyone," he knows this isn't the strongest argument but it's something. 

"I've never seen Mingyu do that for someone, not even his close friends, he kept checking if you were comfortable or that you wouldn't strain your neck from the pillow. Wonwoo I know this is hard to believe but Mingyu is really different when he's with you," 

Wonwoo hates this, he hates that he doesn't want to believe Minghao because he knows that if he gets hurt later he's going to subconsciously or maybe even consciously blame Minghao for bringing up this expectation onto him. But what's worse is that he hates himself for wanting to believe him. Minghao knows Mingyu more than anyone, just like how Jun knows Wonwoo more than anyone. It doesn't matter that their time in this school is shorter than any of their other friends and that's why Wonwoo wants to believe him. 

"I'll keep that in mind, but I really think that Mingyu was just being nice, I was tired which was partially his fault since we left so late so he could have been repaying for that. Also told this to Jun yesterday but I think you guys are forgetting one thing, BamBam. He's still in the picture hello? I don't think Mingyu is the type of person to go around messing with other people when he is in a relationship," 

"Of course we know that," Jun says "But I'm just saying, considering how much time you guys spend together versus their long-distance relationship, I wouldn't be surprised if his feelings that he once had for BamBam have now been replaced with feelings for you," 

"But it's just a theory right? You guys are just assuming things, just like how you," Wonwoo points at Minghao, "thought that I fucking liked him back in January," 

"Hey," he raises his hands, "in my defense you were showing all the signs I'm surprised you only like him now," 

"Okay I didn't like him back then but maybe the signs were showing because that's what you guys wanted to see and honestly I don't blame you for it, but right now this thing is killing me more than I am enjoying it. I want to enjoy it but I can't," 

"Why not?" Minghao asks

"It's just what it is, it sucks but it is what it is, can you guys respect that and not tell Mingyu about this?" Wonwoo is surprised at himself for being so straight about this because he has never been able to be so direct and honest like this and even if he has tried in the past it always ended with him just sliding the topic under the rug and letting it stay there until the feeling of wanting to tell someone resurfaced again. 

The couple both look at each other, "Sure" they smile. 

"Hey what are you guys talking about?" Mingyu appears out of nowhere.

"Bio," 

"Project" 

"It's about plants," the three of them said shocked at themselves at how synchronized their timing was. 

"Jun are you going to Hong Kong with Hao?" Mingyu asks as he sits himself down. 

"Wha-what?" Wonwoo says as he turns to Jun. 

"It's just this summer program thing Hao is going to, I was gonna go but ended up not going cause of my parents," 

"Hmm," 

"Where are you going?" Mingyu turns to 

"Same old Japan," Wonwoo says "France?" 

"First Thailand then France yeah," Mingyu replies. 

Ah, BamBam, of course, it's like Wonwoo got his reality check once again and he just raises both of his eyebrows at the Chinese couple to give them a "Told you," look. 

"How's your sister doing?" Jun immediately changes the subject "Does she ever want to come here to study?" 

Sometimes Wonwoo wonders why Mingyu's family allowed him to come back to Korea when they live in France. His sister is still too young to come here so she's stuck there, as she puts it and Mingyu has only been in Korea for his high school years so it would take some time for his younger sister to get here. No one can get used to the fact that Mingyu speaks the language and always make the most awkward faces when he talks to any one of his family members in French. He always gets teased about it but he knows that everyone just finds it hard to take in. In some way, Wonwoo finds a connection in the fact that they're both unfamiliar with Korea and the ways of living here and maybe that's why bringing the catalyst that was Jun and Minghao shifted things in their relationship. Jun is honestly the biggest blessing in Wonwoo's life right now because, without him and the default help of Minghao, he would live through his high school years uneventfully and with no proper cherishable memories. 

They all break into the summer break as they leave the campus one by one with the Chinese couple and Mingyu leaving the earliest because of their flight schedules and Wonwoo going back early in the morning the next day for his short but somewhat relieving flight back to Tokyo. He's never felt happier to leave the school and take a breather from everything that is going on right now because he really needed to get away from Mingyu in the time being and constantly being around him wasn't helping diffuse any overthinking situations inside his head. But what he wishes he knew before leaving Seoul was that the overthinking was going to continue regardless of where he was, maybe even worse since his life in Japan is even more boring than the one in Seoul.

The very few close friends Wonwoo had had naturally moved on to their own high school and have their own friends to hang out with during the summer. Wonwoo spends his summer break between working part-time jobs and staying at home and binging to whatever show that he could possibly find. 

🌻

_**Minghao** _

> Hey

**_Wonwoo_ **

Oh? <

Hello <

To what do I owe the pleasure? <

How's Hong Kong? <

_**Minghao** _

> Really good. 

> Might consider here for University. 

> Hbu? How's Japan? 

**_Wonwoo_ **

Hella bored, doing the same shit everyday <

work <

sleep <

eat <

drama <

_**Minghao** _

> Hold on, let me figure out my train card, 

> So how's that mind of yours and the person that is occupying it? 

**_Wonwoo_ **

Keep figuring out your train thingy <

Good first and last chat <

Have a wonderful life <

Bye <

_**Minghao** _

> Nope, come back here

**_Wonwoo_ **

When I said bye I meant BYE <

_**Minghao** _

> So, how is it? Do you still think about it?

**_Wonwoo_ **

... <

_**Minghao** _

> Stop sending me "..."

> Do you talk to him? 

**_Wonwoo_ **

Of course not ^^ <

_**Minghao** _

> Why not? 

**_Wonwoo_ **

Why should I? <

_**Minghao** _

> You ask me how my break is going, just do the same thing,

**_Wonwoo_ **

You texted first <

_**Minghao** _

> Yeah but, you like him so you might be happy if you talk to him? 

**_Wonwoo_ **

Not really <

_**Minghao** _

> Ah, you still feel the same since that day? 

> Has it gotten worse or still the same? 

**_Wonwoo_ **

I mean I have all this free time but I don't know <

Not saying this to avoid your question, I really don't know <

Why are we even talking about this? <

_**Minghao** _

> Cause I'm bored, you're bored 

**_Wonwoo_ **

You're on a train <

_**Minghao** _

> Exactly

> Just let it out and let it be

**_Wonwoo_ **

Tf does that even mean? <

_**Minghao** _

> It means you should just stop being so awkward about it 

> If you feel something for Mingyu, then it is what it, don't need to be so awkward about it, 

**_Wonwoo_ **

Hey you get a free pass at listening to all of this <

_**Minghao** _

> Good ^^ 

> Are you ever gonna tell him? 

**_Wonwoo_ **

I don't think I will <

_**Minghao** _

> Hmm

**_Wonwoo_ **

Oh wow, I thought you were gonna give me another "Why not?" <

_**Minghao** _

> So you have feelings for him but you don't want a relationship? 

**_Wonwoo_ **

It's not like that, I just don't want to risk our current friendship, <

Don't want things to get weird between us <

_**Minghao** _

> Who knows, it might go somewhere

 ** _Wonwoo_**

That's exactly what I mean, it's always going to be a "Who knows" <

Rather be friends than nothing at all <

_**Minghao** _

> If that's what you believe

> Anyways, I gotta get off the train, see you Wonwoo. 

**_Wonwoo_ **

Good night <

_**Wonuwu** _

BITCH YOUR FUCKING BOYFRIEND JUST BOMBARDED ME WITH AN INTERROGATION THAT I WAS NOT READY FOR <

_**Junnie** _

> ??? 

_**Wonuwu** _

_Wonwoo sent 7 photos <_

_**Junnie** _

> Wow, you really answered every question in the most cryptic way, 

_**Wonuwu** _

I just really don't know how to put it into words <

_**Junnie** _

> That was a very... fun read... 

> We only have summer program talks

> Oh he's calling me right now, gotta go! 

> And stop thinking about Mingyu!!! 

Easier said than done, Wonwoo goes further down the rabbit hole to the point where he's not sure whether he's ever felt this way about someone before, he questions if he's ever been this confused and had this much feeling for someone. He knows for sure that this is different, he doesn't know how but he knows it is. He couldn't figure it out for the first few weeks through his shifts at his job through lying on his bed and staring into the ceiling until his eyes and brain decide to give out. 

At first, he denies it, even denies that this could be what he thinks it is, because how could he possibly know what it is. He's never been in a relationship long enough to get to that stage and that kind of feeling for his parents and friends is a given, he wouldn't question it. 

Could he be in love with Mingyu? 

No, there's no way. He doesn't even know the first thing when it comes to love but his heart is practically yelling at him. In the second instance, he brushes it off as a trick that his mind is setting up for him because he's not around Mingyu anymore so the feeling of missing him is being sneakily replaced by the idea of being in love. He knows this isn't 'love', he knows but he can't help but wonder what it's like to love someone. What does it mean for Jun and Minghao? Surely the parental love and platonic love are on the complete opposite when it comes to this scale. He ends up googling the most embarrassing questions and even goes towards the more complicated psychology behind everything. 

At this moment he thanks Soonyoung for talking about Psychology at every chance he got because if it were not for that, he wouldn't understand half of the words in half of these study papers and youtube videos. 

What is love? Is this love that he feels towards Mingyu? 

He knows a few things for sure, he wants Mingyu to take care of himself better, he wants to know that he's safe whenever he does out drinking, he wants Mingyu to do what he wants to do after they leave high school, he knows that he wants Mingyu to grow old and live a prosperous life, he knows that he wants Mingyu to be happy, from the bottom of his heart, he knows that Mingyu's happiness will bring him happiness. But is this love? He doesn't think so, but if loving someone means wanting them to achieve good things in life and be happy even if the source isn't you, isn't that what love is?

Wonwoo goes through his birthday rather uneventfully with his family buying him a small cake and then taking him and his brother to a nice restaurant. Other than that, Wonwoo just sent replies to everyone who wished him a happy birthday. Jun texted him when the clock in Japan struck midnight and Soonyoung also sent him multiple stickers. Jeonghan and Jihoon texted him in the morning. A couple of classmates sent him a simple "Happy Birthday!" or "Happy Birthday Wonwoo!" and that was about it. 

One person seemed to have forgotten and by the end of the day, Wonwoo just kept wanting to see that one text from him but it never arrived, Wonwoo has all these thoughts and he wants to bring this to an end, he knows this is different because he's never felt this way about someone before but he wants it to stop. He's scared, he doesn't know why he is but these kinds of thoughts terrify him more than anything. 

He wants to ask Jun what it's like to be in love with Minghao, he opens their chat many times during the day but can never bring himself to type the words. He could never let anyone know that this one-sided crush could have turned into a one-sided love in such a short amount of time. Maybe Minghao was right, maybe Wonwoo did like Mingyu from before but never registered it or even noticed it until someone pointed it out. Maybe Wonwoo needs things to be addressed to him in order for him to actually let things unlock inside him. 

One afternoon, he opens his chat with Jun once again and tries to bring himself to ask the question but the 'typing' indication pops up from Jun and Wonwoo just waits for whatever Jun has to say. His heart drops. 

_**Junnie** _

> I think Minghao and I are going to break up

_**Wonuwu** _

What?! Wait, are you sure? <

I mean <

What makes you think? <

_**Junnie** _

> Can I call? I don't think I have the strength to text right now. 

_**Wonuwu** _

Sure <

Jun's call comes in no less than a minute and Wonwoo is afraid to listen to what Jun has to say. Somewhere deep down he doesn't want his perfect image of Jun and Minghao to be destroyed. They're the only thing keeping him from losing faith in love. It may come off selfish, maybe even weirdly dependent even though he has no right to. But right now he needs to put his own complications aside. 

"Hey," Wonwoo starts 

"Please don't tell him I told you, I just really need to talk about it to someone," 

"Of course," 

"Ever since we started dating, we've never had a time where we've been apart for this long and I think that's killing him on the inside. He saying that he wants to take a break because he doesn't want to cheat on me and hurt me so he'd rather just break it off now. He's mentally not in a good state right now and he wants to be free and not worry about me. Like honestly I don't fucking know anymore, this is just great," Jun says as his voice begins to crack. 

"After everything that we went through and he just fucks me over like this," 

Wonwoo stays silent, he knows he should say something but right now it seems Jun just needs to let everything out of his system so he just waits for him to calm down. 

"Yeah... wow, um, we're um, trying to make it work right now," 

"But, Jun, this is just a small fear of separation on Minghao's part, relationships work because two people try and give the effort, even if it's okay for him how is it okay for you?" 

"Minghao, he likes to appear strong and he is but I think he really needs me, and this whole month apart thing broke him more than he expected it to and he's not being able to cope with it," 

They talk for the next hour with just Jun doubting over and over his entire relationship with Minghao. Wonwoo honestly has no idea what to say but he can understand both of their sides in a way. This whole issue is just deep-rooted with Minghao's insecurity of not being with Jun and Jun having to question every love that he has felt for Minghao. Wonwoo can only imagine how tough it is for both of them but right now his job is to support Jun and help him go through this. 

Jun passes out after an hour and after fully confirming that the other did really fall asleep, Wonwoo cuts the call. 

_**Junnie** _

> Hey 

> Did I fall asleep on you? 

_**Wonuwu** _

Lol yeah <

How'd you sleep? <

_**Junnie** _

> Fine

> I woke up a couple of times in the night but it's fine. 

_**Wonuwu** _

How are you feeling? <

_**Junnie** _

> Still overwhelmed by everything but the call helped 

> Thank you so much <3 <3 <3

_**Wonuwu** _

No problem <

I'm here for you <

_**Junnie** _

> I still need to think about some things but it'll be fine 

And Wonwoo hoped that would be the end of it. On that week's Saturday night, Jun kills Wonwoo's notification sound when he sends so many texts to Wonwoo that his phone gave up trying to make a sound each time Jun pressed 'send'. 

_**Junnie** _

> Wonwoo

> Jeon Wonwoo

> JEON WONWOO 

> Wonuuuuu 

> WONWOO YAAAAAAHHHH 

> I love youuuuu 

> SO SO SO SO SO SO SO MUCH 

> Like THISSSSSSS MUCH 

> Like really, you are my best friendddd 

> and i mean it 

> there i declared my love for you 

> YOU ARE MY BEST FRIEND IN THE WHOLE WORLD 

> You lobe me right? 

> lobe 

> loeb

> loev

> lobe

> lobe

> Ah fuck it 

> DO YOU 

> ANSWER ME JEON WONWOO 

> WONWOO 

_**Wonuwu** _

Are you drunk? <

_**Junnie** _

> A bit 

> But drunk me is also honest me so 

> fuck offfff 

_**Wonuwu** _

Ok ok, love you too <

_**Junnie** _

> But I mean it

> really 

> I consider you as my best friend 

_**Wonuwu** _

Aww, don't go breaking my heart <

_**Junnie** _

> My hubbbbyyy 

_**Wonuwu** _

Okay you are so drunk <

_**Junnie** _

> No but I love you 

> and THAT 

> is important 

_**Wonuwu** _

Yes <

Just not used to typing i love you a lot <

_**Junnie Hubby** _

> I'll make you used to it ahahah 

_**Won Hubby** _

I'll take you up on that challenge <

But are you okay though? <

What the hell is Junnie Hubby and Won Hubby <

_**Junnie Hubby** _

> Yeahhhh 

> LOL DONT CHANGE IT 

_**Won Hubby** _

Sure.. <

_**Junnie Hubby** _

> My fam is with me 

_**Won Hubby** _

Wow, they let you drink? <

_**Junnie Hubby** _

> Yeahhhhhhh 

_**Won Hubby** _

Okay, well <

Don't drink too much <

Take care of yourself <

Stay safe <

_**Junnie Hubby** _

> I'm in my bed so I can't do much drinking anymore 

_**Won Hubby** _

Oh fuck u, i take that back <

_**Junnie Hubby** _

> love youuuuu 

_**Won Hubby** _

Sleep well hon <

_**Junnie Hubby** _

> Wonwoo? 

_**Won Hubby** _

yeah? <

_**Junnie Hubby** _

> I'm thinking of ending things with Minghao 

_**Won Hubby** _

Wait for what? <

I thought you guys fixed things <

Wait no <

Let's not talk about this right now <

Go sleep <

We'll talk when you're sober <

_**Junnie Hubby** _

> But 

_**Won Hubby** _

NO BUTS <

You might make some decisions that your sober state might not <

Don't make decisions you're not making <

_**Junnie Hubby** _

> Ok 

> thank you mommmm

_**Won Hubby** _

I'm not your mom <

_**Junnie Hubby** _

> oh right we're in love 

> love you hubbbbyyyy 

_**Won Hubby** _

Good night Junnie <

_**Won Hubby** _

Morning bitch <

How is your head? <

_**Junnie Hubby** _

> It's good 

> Wasn't that drunk 

_**Won Hubby** _

Sure... <

Anyways, do you remember what you told me yesterday? <

_**Junnie Hubby** _

> Yeah

> I still feel the same 

> Last night he said he would call me and then he didn't

> like he's being so so so shitty like he doesn't even realize that I'm so disappointed in him.

> We said we would make this work and honestly, I thought we were for the first few days and then he pulls this today like seriously what the fuck,

> Wonwoo, I'm giving up on him, I just wanna stop trying, 

_**Won Hubby** _

I get you Jun but I know you're calm but wait a few days <

test the waters <

don't decide in the spur of the moment <

What you guys have is more than a relationship and I know it can work out <

I know you probably don't wanna hear this from me but just wait it out a few days <

I know it will be tough, but I'll be here with you <

just <

wait it out <

_**Junnie Hubby** _

> I'm soo drained

> I know I don't want to end it or will, but it's in my mind...

> But yeah, I'll wait it out, let me talk to him first. 

_**Won Hubby** _

Okay, text me when he does <

when you're ready to talk about it <

I just want you guys to work things out <

_**Junnie Hubby** _

> Thanks Wonwoo 

_**Won Hubby** _

Anytime <

Wonwoo knows Jun approached him first but somehow he feels like he's invading a bit too much, meddling if one were to put it. But somewhere in him, he knows that if he and Jun's roles were swapped, his friend would do the exact same thing. Somewhere in his heart, he knows Jun and Minghao are meant to be, that something like this shouldn't even be coming between them but it has, and it scares him. Even with a bond that is as strong as theirs, if relationships are this breakable, he doesn't know what is real anymore. They've only been apart for a month but somehow their hearts break not being near each other, is something as intangible as love this easily breakable? He doesn't want to question either of their sincerity towards this relationship but somewhere along the lines of getting closer to them and never having known what love is, he knew that what Jun and Minghao have is something special. He relies on them to keep him from falling out of the idea that love ever exists. 

But when Minghao's insecurity and Jun's vulnerability came in the way, he can't help but think that this is all love will ever be, something so easily breakable, something so meaningless that a small slip up can cause everything to fall apart, but he knows that something that is so easily breakable is also fixable and he will do everything he can to make sure Jun doesn't get hurt and that he keeps his happiness. He just doesn't know if that is being with Minghao or not being with him. 

A few days later, Wonwoo is with his parents and brother for lunch when Jun texts him telling him he's ready to talk. Wonwoo doesn't know what to expect, so he prepares himself before pressing the call button. 

"Hey, mom? Can I take this call?" 

"Sure, just don't take too long, food might get cold," 

Wonwoo leaves the table and heads out to the balcony. For a restaurant, the area is oddly empty but Wonwoo thanks for this unasked privacy. 

"Hello?" Jun picks up 

"Hey, how you holding up?" 

"Been better," 

"Have you talked to Minghao?" 

"Yeah, I- I don't know, I don't know what I should do, I mean some part of me just wants everything to just end but another part of me, a huge part of me tells me if I go through with this breakup, I might not be able to handle it, I- can you please tell me what I should do?" 

Wonwoo pauses for a while, he knows what he should tell Jun, he knows that at the end of the day, logic beats emotions. He knows. 

"You know, I can't tell you what to do with your life, it's not mine to dictate and you can take my advice but at the end of the day, the final call is yours. But I've never done this before and fuck I can't believe I'm even doing this but, Jun-" 

"Yeah?" 

"You and I both know that breaking up isn't going to solve anything, and more importantly, I think you should give this another shot. I know it might be tough but, it's what I always say, don't you want to regret doing something and knowing that you tried to make your own amends instead of not doing anything and just letting it die out? I'd rather have something I'd regret on doing which I thought about over and over rather than something I didn't do because I didn't want to deal with it," 

"Hmm yeah," 

"Look, you and Minghao, you guys have something real, I can't be one to judge but you can. And if you know that this is worth another shot, then I say go for it. If you wanted to truly break it off you would have done without any hesitation, and I know that this isn't just a black and white situation and that there's more to it than just wanting to end everything." 

"That's true but what if it doesn't work out," 

"Then it's the other thing I always say, if it's meant to be, it's meant to be, and if it's not-" 

"Yeah. You're right, I want to try again and believe in this relationship but I'm just scared that's all," 

"I know you are, but I'll be here, I'm always here- where you like it or not" he laughs "Fuck, this is so weird of me to try and convince you to do something, usually I'm the giving options guy, not telling people what to do guy," 

For a split second, it crosses Wonwoo's mind that what if the advice he's giving right now will just cause for damage than good, what if he's making the wrong call, what if- 

"Hello? You there? Wonwoo??" 

"Yeah sorry, I'm just, you know, worried what if I'm giving you the wrong advice, what if I should have just stuck to my regular and logical one," 

"No no, don't say that. Yes, you are the one telling me to not break up with him but you just told me what I was afraid to speak out on my own," 

"Okay, I hope you're okay," Wonwoo's phone notification goes off and he removes the phone from his ears and checks to see his mom messaged him to tell him to come back inside. "Uh, hey sorry I've kinda gotta go, I'm at a family lunch thing," 

"Yeah sure, no problem, I was just about to go out with my family too,"

"Hey," 

"Hm?" 

"Are you sure you're okay?" 

"Yeah I am, I'll talk it out with Minghao today or sometime soon, I'll let you know,"

"Okay," 

"Wonwoo?" 

"Thank you, not only for today, this whole month I-" 

"It's okay, that's what best friends are for right?" 

"Since when did Jeon Wonwoo get so cheesy," 

"Shut up," 

"Okay bye," 

"Bye" 

Wonwoo goes back to see the food has already arrived so he seats himself and begins to eat. His parents and his brother are talking about something but everything becomes white noise behind his wavering thoughts, he doesn't know if he made the right call, should he have been the logical one in between the two of them and told them what was probably better for Jun? Jun gave him the reassurance but that doesn't stop him from thinking that he may have chosen the wrong path, given the wrong judgment. He can only hope that things do work out. 

Wonwoo gets woken up by a text at 2 am, he opens to see a long text from Minghao but is too sleepy to even read it so he just puts his phone aside. When he properly wakes up in the morning, he suddenly remembers the text and opens his phone in a rush. 

The text reads "Hey Wonwoo, I just wanna say thank you for keeping Jun calm and helping him through this. It really means a lot. I know I kinda look like an asshole for causing all this mess in the first place but I have my own reasons. We talked it out last night and we're good, actually good this time. But yeah, thank you so much for everything."

Wonwoo thinks about what he should reply, maybe tell him off, maybe tell him that it's okay because he's just human. But he comes to the conclusion that he shouldn't have any more say in this.

He sends a short "Anytime" with a smiley face.

Nothing much happens after that, Wonwoo goes back to his mundane summer vacation life which meant all of the thoughts about Mingyu that came to a halt when the Jun and Minghao event exploded came right back like it never left. He goes through his inevitable cycle of deleting all of his social media and cutting off everyone to completely clear his mind. At this point, his friend has gotten used to this repetitive cycle where Wonwoo disappears for about a week or two but they know he'll eventually come back.

When the school sends all of them an email telling them which homeroom they will be placed in, Wonwoo deems this as a good time to talk to Jun again so he spends 15 minutes redownloading and re-logging in everything.

_**Won Hubby**_

Hey <

Which homeroom are you in? <

A? <

_**Junnie Hubby** _

> OMG YOU'RE BACK 

> YESSSSS 

> You??? 

_**Won Hubby** _

Yesss <

_**Junnie Hubby** _

> FINALLY SOMETHING GOOD 

> I'm worried about the rooms 

> You think they would change their minds? 

Before the four of them left the dorms, Jun, Wonwoo, Seungkwan, and Joshua made a request to be put in the same room once again like the previous year and they made sure that the teachers understood but this school can be fluctuating with their decisions and they never know when they might just forget to make their room arrangements as requested. 

_**Won Hubby** _

Should we send an email asking or do you think that's going too far? <

_**Junnie Hubby** _

> I think so 

> Let's just hope they don't suddenly decide to throw us into random rooms with random people. 

> Anyways how's u? 

_**Won Hubby** _

Actually <

Never been this scared to come back to school <

_**Junnie Hubby** _

**> **You are?

> Why? 

_**Won Hubby** _

Kinda <

Idk <

_**Junnie Hubby** _

> Is it cause of what you said before? 

_**Won Hubby** _

Kind of <

Well honestly everything <

_**Junnie Hubby** _

> Ish fineeeee 

> I'll be thereeee

_**Won Hubby** _

Thanks <

_**Junnie Hubby** _

> Oh btw have you chosen your activities for the orientation? 

> The doc was sent to us like the day before yesterday but I ignored it 

_**Won Hubby** _

Me too <

Idk, I'll just do what you do <

_**Junnie Hubby** _

_> _Kayaking? 

_**Won Hubby** _

Sure <

And archery? <

_**Junnie Hubby** _

> Sure

> Can you write my name down, I'm gonna go into the shower 

_**Won Hubby** _

Sure sure <

_**Junnie Hubby** _

_> _Idk what Minghao will do 

_**Won Hubby** _

Wait <

Shit <

Whatever you do Minghao does <

And whatever Minghao does... Min- FUCK NO <

_**Junnie Hubby** _

> Oh ahhhaaha, you'll be fine, he probably won't sign up with the same things as me,

> Chill out 

_**Won Hubby** _

DITCH HIM PLEASE <

_**Junnie Hubby** _

> Calm down, he hasn't even signed up anyways,

> Brb shower 

_**Junnie Hubby** _

> Oh... LOL 

> _Junhui sent a photo_

_**Won Hubby** _

FCKKK I TOLD YOUUU <

_**Junnie Hubby** _

_> _STOP PANICKING 

_**Won Hubby** _

why <

WHY<

FUCK and I gotta go work <

HELP ME <

_**Junnie Hubby** _

_> _You have work? 

> Save yourself kekekke

_**Won Hubby** _

Fuck youuuu <

BYE <

_**Junnie Hubby** _

> Bui Bui 

🌻 

Wonwoo dreads the day he hears from either Jun or Minghao that Mingyu has finally broken up with BamBam. Somewhere along the lines maybe he started to find comfort in the fact that he is taken, that he knows by absolute means he's unattainable. He can understand why Minghao and Jun are so unfazed by the concept of confessions and coming true to their feelings but that is all too foreign to Wonwoo. He wouldn't know how his heart or mind will change when he learns that Mingyu is within reach, that maybe the idea of them being together won't be so unnatural. But each time he thinks that maybe it is possible, his inner demons present themselves making sure that Wonwoo never strays away from his original line of thought.

For a couple of days, maybe a full week, he forgot that for a while he was under the impression that he was in love with Mingyu. Suddenly the idea doesn't seem too weird like it did for the first few days that it hit. Maybe he eased himself into the thought, maybe he adapted himself to comprehend his own thoughts or maybe he might actually feel comfortable with the fact that he might be in love with Mingyu. Of course, he's not going to suddenly go out in the open and proclaim his love but weirdly his previous thoughts that he could never be with someone suddenly became replaced by another thought- that he might actually be able to imagine them dating. It's still a fresh thought in his mind but it's one that doesn't feel weird, which makes it worse. How could he suddenly be comfortable with the image of him being with someone? For the last few years, he always watched people change partners, find new people and discover new things about themselves, but he never changed, he never thought that he would ever be able to date someone so why is he suddenly thinking things that shouldn't be there in the first place. Suddenly the white canvas that has the eraser function all over it has gotten rid of that particular function and Wonwoo can start drawing. This is why he dreads it, he could never bring himself to tell even Jun that he'd rather have Mingyu with BamBam for as long as possible, but at the same time, he wants them to split. 

His mind is having its own battle between the heart and mind and Wonwoo is in the middle combusting through it all. Emotions are never pure black and white and right now Wonwoo sees exactly what that means. He isn't ready to face anything but timing is most definitely a bitch and has a personal agenda against him. 

Wonwoo is at a formal dinner at a traditional Japanese restaurant where the males of the family were obligated to wear a suit whereas the females had to wear a kimono. Wonwoo is sitting on the Tatami mat, just watching everyone in the room discuss their own business matters whereas the kids are sitting in their own corner doing whatever kids their age do. 

Wonwoo phone buzzes inside his pocket. 

**_Mingyu_ **

> I wanna talk to you about something 

Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit is all Wonwoo can think. He understands the sudden rise in pulse, the sudden urge to chug a whole bucket of water, the sudden urge to stand up and just leave from this crowded room but he has a role to play and until this dinner is over he can't leave the room. Wonwoo's mind goes into a frenzy where different scenarios start to script themselves as he is forced to take all of it at once. 

_**Wonwoo** _

Can you wait, I'm kind of busy right now <

I'll get back to you when I'm done with dinner <

This is good, this gives him time to think all whilst comforting himself in food, but he also might barf it all out. He sits through dinner all whilst his brain literally wears itself out. Wonwoo tries to clear his head but nothing works so he just gives up. At this point, his whole summer was about overthinking this isn't anything new. 

After the dinner, Wonwoo's family is the first to leave and Wonwoo finds it ironic how they usually leave at the end of the dinner or at least after a couple of others have left. But today is just the day to have the stars align in the wrongest way. He watches as the city lights shine through his eyes and he opens his phone and comes to terms that he has to do this. 

_**Wonwoo** _

What's up? <

It only takes Mingyu a couple of minutes to reply but those few minutes felt all too short and quick and suddenly, Wonwoo isn't ready anymore. 

**_Mingyu_ **

> It's about me breaking up with BamBam and I just need to talk to a rational person. 

_**Wonwoo** _

Ahh? <

The voice inside Wonwoo's head literally starts screaming, calling out for help into oblivion because, at this very moment, Wonwoo is the most unfitting person for this kind of talk. There couldn't be a worse subject to talk about especially when the person being asked advice from is maybe possibly most definitely in love with the one asking. Wonwoo takes a few seconds to bring his thought back to earth and he knows anything he says will later come out as him trying to get Mingyu when he had the chance. In no circumstance will Wonwoo have a chance to defend himself if it were to ever come out that he likes Mingyu. 

_**Wonwoo** _

Why me? I mean not to sound like an ass just genuinely asking... <

**_Mingyu_ **

> You listen well and you don't spill shit to people and every time I talked to you about my life it usually helped. 

_**Wonwoo** _

I see <

Go ahead, just tell me how much you want to <

**_Mingyu_ **

> Honestly, I'm fine with telling you everything. 

Wonwoo knows emotions cloud judgment and right now he needs none of that. Before his own personal feelings he needs to consider the fact that Mingyu went all the way to ask Wonwoo for help, he knows when to set things aside and help someone in need. He knows that anything he says will be taken out of context as him wanting Mingyu if anyone were to ever find out about this conversation and also learn that Wonwoo has feelings for Mingyu but for him, everyone is before him. He needs to be the neutral party, the unfazed, the higher person and if he doesn't set aside his own personal feelings, everything will go wrong. 

_**Wonwoo** _

Sure <

**_Mingyu_ **

> At the beginning of summer break we were super close and we called every night and like you know I went to Thailand to meet with him and there were never any big problems. Of course, there were small arguments but that's to be expected in any relationship right. 

_**Wonwoo** _

Of course <

**_Mingyu_ **

> My time in Thailand was really nice, we were always together and I bought him a really expensive gift but it felt really nice. 

_**Wonwoo** _

Okay <

**_Mingyu_ **

> After I left, we were good for a couple of days but out of nowhere he texts me saying that even though he loves me, the distance is killing him and also the timezone difference cause I'm all the way here in France right now and he's well, there. 

> And he doesn't think this is going to work 

_**Wonwoo** _

Okay <

**_Mingyu_ **

> And I was just so confused like ???

> You couldn't tell me this before I bought that expensive gift and shit? 

> Like wtf... 

_**Wonwoo** _

Oh... <

**_Mingyu_ **

> And then he was saying how much he loves me but he can't do this long-distance thing and that he'll just get bored if we try to make this work.

_**Wonwoo** _

Okay <

**_Mingyu_ **

> And honestly I still don't understand

_**Wonwoo** _

Neither do I <

**_Mingyu_ **

> But then he's like maybe if we cool down and take a break, we might be able to work things out.

> So I agreed and we didn't talk for a few days. 

_**Wonwoo** _

Okay <

**_Mingyu_ **

> But then it turns out, over on Instagram, he's been claiming that he's single and that he might be falling for someone new 

_**Wonwoo** _

Oh... <

**_Mingyu_ **

> At that moment, I was like done. 

> I was like okay, sorry for trying to save this relationship. 

_**Wonwoo** _

Oh <

**_Mingyu_ **

> So that's where we're at right now... 

_**Wonwoo** _

Wait, so you're not broken up??? <

**_Mingyu_ **

> Yeah I'm just going to end things tomorrow. 

_**Wonwoo** _

Hmm... <

**_Mingyu_ **

> Honestly I don't know what I'm doing. 

> Like I know I didn't mess this up but, what am I doing... 

_**Wonwoo** _

Maybe he just needs different things, for some people the long-distance thing works, for some it doesn't. And I don't think it's either of your faults. <

Although, I do think that it was not right for him to say that you guys should take a break and then go be so vocal on Instagram that he's single and shit. <

But sometimes if it's not meant to be then it's not right? <

Sometimes people try really hard to hold on to something that was never there, to begin with, or something that faded away with time <

**_Mingyu_ **

> Right...

> Why bring this up all of a sudden? 

> I could have saved so much time and energy if he had just ended things before everything. 

_**Wonwoo** _

I don't understand that either. <

It's time wasted on both sides, something that could have been easily avoided. <

**_Mingyu_ **

> Exactly, we could have spent it on some other things that are more real. 

> I don't regret the trip, even if I knew and could go back in time, I would still go. Thailand was a blast. 

_**Wonwoo** _

Okay, but at the end of the day, I'm your friend, so I'm speaking this from the perspective of a friend. <

At the end of the day, you should be your number one priority right, and if things are working for you then maybe it's time for things to change in your life. <

But if your heart tells you that you still want to try and give things a chance then I say go for it <

It's better to regret something you actually put effort into and tried to make amends than regret something you gave up on. 

**_Mingyu_ **

> I don't want to try 

> But at the same time, I cannot stop caring about the people I love or loved no matter how much they drag me down. 

_**Wonwoo** _

Oh... I see <

**_Mingyu_ **

> Same with friends. 

> Honestly a weak point of me, 

_**Wonwoo** _

I don't think that's a weakness, I think that just means beyond the exterior that you put out, you genuinely care about people and that you're a good person. <

But this could take a toll on your mental health, in the sense that, even if you want to find closure to all of this, maybe your deepest feelings could never. <

**_Mingyu_ **

> To this moment, I still care about him. 

_**Wonwoo** _

That's exactly what I mean <

You try to see the good in everything no matter how much of the bad you've seen <

And that isn't necessarily a drawback IF you're able to handle the burden if you're able to keep a positive outlook on everything in a way that won't hinder your daily life. <

In a way, it might have already but you just can't notice it <

**_Mingyu_ **

> Yeah but the problem is the fact that I still care when I am not supposed to 

_**Wonwoo** _

But what about in the long run? Right now you can cover it up, pretend it's done and dusted but you never know how it could come back and bite you in the ass. <

**_Mingyu_ **

> I think I can handle it, don't worry about that, 

_**Wonwoo** _

What you need is proper closure, how you deal with this mentally. You could cut him out but what about you deep inside. <

**_Mingyu_ **

> It's always been second nature for me to put people above myself

> And I'm fine with that

_**Wonwoo** _

Whatever floats your boat <

What is it that YOU want? <

At the end of the day, you can only take care of yourself, you know what's best for you <

**_Mingyu_ **

> I guess I just want to end things with no hard feelings. 

_**Wonwoo** _

But you said that you would have wanted to spend time on something more real... what do you mean by real? <

**_Mingyu_ **

> At that time I thought what we had was real

> But apparently for him, he was already having second thoughts and I just don't think that's what a real relationship would have. 

_**Wonwoo** _

Oh.. <

**_Mingyu_ **

> And then I start questioning if this was ever real from the start, or was he just faking everything to make me feel happy. 

> Anyways, there's nothing to keep hanging on cause it's so clear my life is better off without him. 

_**Wonwoo** _

I see... <

But like I said that time if you want to give this a second chance, try once again, I don't see any reason as to why you shouldn't. <

Cause we only have now, live in the moment and do what you think is best for you <

And if that means hanging on to something/someone, then that's just the current you <

And if it doesn't turn out the way you wanted it to, it just means it wasn't meant to be from the start but at least you didn't give up on the "now" <

**_Mingyu_ **

> I'm going to end it anyway, I know for a fact if I give this another shot, this is going to be an emotional coaster I am not willing to ride. 

> No need to add any more cigarettes to my life

_**Wonwoo** _

Oh <

How's that by the way <

Your smoking <

**_Mingyu_ **

> I'm fine, I can go days without it, I never really had the experience of cold turkey so I think I can handle it. 

_**Wonwoo** _

Ok ok, I'm just being concerned like any other human being <

Anyways, final thoughts? 

**_Mingyu_ **

> I sort of already made up my mind but this helped, 

> Thanks Won

_**Wonwoo** _

No problem <

**_Mingyu_ **

> You know, what you did to me right now, if you ever need it, I would do the same 

_**Wonwoo** _

For what? <

**_Mingyu_ **

> For helping me? Listening to me? Being the good friend that you are? 

> Ring any bell? 

_**Wonwoo** _

No clue <

Well hope you calmed down a bit <

**_Mingyu_ **

> Meh, I was pretty calm from the start. 

> I was worried a bit but it eventually went away 

_**Wonwoo** _

That's good <

People usually act in the spur of the moment, having their emotions control their thoughts, I don't blame them but yeah good on you. <

Is that all? <

**_Mingyu_ **

> Yeah that's all

_**Wonwoo** _

Well, if you ever need to talk to someone, I'm always here yeah? <

Not saying you have to force yourself just keep it as an option you know? <

**_Mingyu_ **

> Thanks Won, 

> Really appreciate it 

But at what cost? 

* * *

_A wavering heart will not reach anywhere._

_I don’t want to break it._

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sort of a shorter chapter this time, very chat-heavy ikik but i guess this is just open to interpretation? 
> 
> I've also decided to update every 2 weeks since 1 week is a bit tight for me ;-;
> 
> Hope you're enjoying the story, let me know if you have any questions or catch any errors lmao,


End file.
